With the rapid development of digital technologies such as big data, cloud computing, and the Internet of Things (IoT), data security and privacy protection have become the core challenges facing modern computing systems. Traditional security mechanisms are difficult to effectively deal with advanced adversarial attacks due to their reliance on a centralized trust model. In this context, the Trusted Execution Environment (TEE), as a hardware-enabled secure isolation technology, offers a potential solution to protect sensitive computations and data. This paper systematically discusses TEE’s technical principle, application status, and future development trend. First, the underlying architecture of TEE and its core characteristics, including isolation, integrity, and confidentiality, are analyzed. Secondly, practical application cases of TEE in fields such as finance, the IoT, artificial intelligence, and privacy computing are studied. Finally, the future development direction of TEE is prospected.