While cosmic rays were first discovered over a century ago, the source of the most extreme-energy components remains unknown. Discovering astrophysical neutrino sources would provide smoking gun evidence for ultra-high energy cosmic ray production. The IceCube Neutrino Observatory discovered a diffuse astrophysical neutrino flux in 2013 and observed the first compelling evidence for a high-energy neutrino source in 2017. Next-generation telescopes with improved sensitivity are required to resolve this diffuse neutrino flux. The tRopIcal DEep-sea Neutrino Telescope (TRIDENT) is expected to instrument ~7.5km3 of seawater with optical detection modules ~3.5km deep in the South China Sea. TRIDENT's size, novel location near the equator and use of advanced photon detection technologies will allow for high-statistic measurements of astrophysical neutrinos and first-rate direction resolution. With this, TRIDENT expects to discover the IceCube steady source candidate NGC 1068 within 2 years of operation. The detector is also developed to be sensitive to all neutrino flavours. These all-flavour detection capabilities aim to quickly diagnose the origin of cosmic rays, and once sources are discovered, open a new arena of neutrino oscillation measurements occurring over astronomical baselines.