This disclosure relates to a method for vertical federated learning. In multiple participation nodes deployed in a multi-way tree topology, an upper-layer participation node corresponds to k lower-layer participation nodes. After the upper-layer participation node and the k lower-layer participation nodes exchange public keys with each other, the upper-layer participation node performs secure two-party joint computation with the lower-layer participation nodes with a first public key and second public keys as encryption parameters to obtain k two-party joint outputs of a federated model. Further, the upper-layer participation node aggregates the k two-party joint outputs to obtain a first joint model output corresponding to the federated model. As such, a multi-way tree topology deployment-based vertical federated learning architecture is provided, improving the equality of each participation node in a vertical federated learning process.