Confidential computing distinctly differs from other privacy-enhancing technologies like homomorphic encryption or secure multi-party computation. Rather than relying on complex cryptographic techniques at the software level or requiring computation across multiple parties, confidential computing specifically employs hardware-rooted Trusted Execution Environments. This approach fundamentally focuses on securing data in use by creating isolated and protected spaces within the hardware. It emphasises direct, hardware-based protection of computational processes, as opposed to other methods that primarily work at the software layer or involve collaborative computation strategies.