Significance: Amid the rapid development of new productivity tools, the active thermal management system of power lithium-ion batteries is facing significant challenges, such as improving charge and discharge ratios and adapting to harsh application scenarios. To maintain stable operations of the power system in the best state, the technical bottleneck of efficient and long-term heat dissipation needs to be overcome. At the same time, in the consumer market, the cost factors of engineering products, including design, materials, space volume, cooling refrigerants, and plumbing systems, need to be carefully considered. Therefore, the active thermal management system of power lithium-ion batteries, which is widely used and has great potential, needs to be systematically summarized. Progress: This paper comprehensively reviews research progress on the active thermal management of power lithium-ion batteries in recent years. First, we summarize the research status of single-phase thermal management methods, including forced air cooling, natural air cooling, immersion liquid cooling, and microchannel liquid cooling. In the context of low charge and discharge ratios and lightweight engineering, air cooling still plays an important role. The main factors affecting battery temperature include air flow rate, air flow velocity, battery layout, and flow channel design. The air cooling system has unique engineering advantages because of its low cost. With an increase in charge and discharge ratios, the effect of microchannel and immersion liquid cooling is significantly enhanced, which is beneficial in controlling the battery's temperature and temperature uniformity. Several factors, such as liquid flow rate and channel design, have notable effects on the battery's heat dissipation; however, corresponding costs also increase. Second, we discuss advanced cooling techniques based on gas/liquid two-phase flow, such as submerged boiling cooling and spray-integrated cooling. In the context of increasing demand for batteries with high charge and discharge ratios, these technologies provide efficient, flexible, and adaptable solutions to thermal management challenges. The cooling medium, the flow rate, and the nozzle arrangement all have different effects on the temperature of the battery, along with the size of the droplets. The feasibility of the comprehensive and market recovery costs to maintain profits and long-term development of the enterprise also needs to be considered. Conclusions and Prospects: Based on the literature review, this paper forecasts the progress trend of active thermal management technology from multiple application scenarios to meet the development needs of lithium electric power in sea, land, and air. We believe that the development of the active thermal management technology of the new generation of power lithium-ion batteries should fully consider practical engineering requirements, such as charge and discharge ratios and harsh application scenarios. Future research and development should focus on improving heat transfer efficiency, system integration, and intelligent control capabilities while overcoming the challenges of reliability, cost, adaptability to extreme operating conditions, and energy consumption optimization.