AbstractThis paper addresses the adaptive finite‐time output tracking control problem for nonlinear large‐scale systems whose power‐exponentials are positive odd rational numbers. The considered systems contain actuator loss‐of‐effectiveness and bias fault, which can be addressed by fault‐tolerant control technique. The intelligent approximator is presented to approximate the unknown nonlinear function. Meanwhile, the technique named adding a power integrator is used, which validly overcomes the problem of the system with power‐exponentials. A finite‐time fault‐tolerant controller is proposed based on the finite‐time Lyapunov stability theory and backstepping algorithm. Moreover, the tracking errors can converge to a small neighborhood of the origin in finite time. Finally, a simulation example is given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed adaptive finite‐time control strategies.