TikTok CEO predicts major AI-driven scientific breakthroughs within three years

“In the next two to three years, we’re going to have a real scientific breakthrough: physics, biotech, chemistry, material science, because of AI. It’s very, very, very possible,” Chew said.

The remarks come as ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese parent company, expands AI research beyond consumer applications. In April, ByteDance’s Seed research team introduced Protenix-v2, an AI model focused on biomolecular structure prediction and design, with potential applications in drug discovery.

Chew said rapid advances in AI were opening possibilities far beyond the technology’s current uses, while questions remain about how to ensure increasingly powerful systems operate within human ethical boundaries.

“If that happens, then you know the question would be: how do you align the models? How do you align the machines to be doing things that are obvious to us as human beings?” he said.

He said the pace of technological development, particularly in scientific research, is accelerating, and argued that AI’s longer-term implications could be much greater than currently anticipated.

“The trend is very very clear. It’s that we are only at the beginning of what artificial intelligence can probably do,” Chew said. “And if you look at where the trend is, [where] the progress is, particularly in areas of science, it’s really trending on a very steep curve at this moment in time.”

Chew said the technology’s immediate impact may be overstated while its longer-term potential remains underappreciated. “I think in the short term we are probably overestimating it, but in the long term we are probably underestimating it,” he said.

His comments came as technology giants spend billions of dollars on AI-powered scientific research. Last week, the U.S. government, Meta and Google announced participation in a $1.8 billion initiative to develop AI models capable of predicting how cells behave, aiming to accelerate biological research and drug discovery.

ByteDance is also developing its own AI models and exploring collaborations with scientists. “There’s an effort to see how we can collaborate with a lot of scientists to make some progress in science as well,” Chew said. “There’s been some work that we’ve done in this area, and it is very exciting.”

Chew described scientific discovery as one of the most promising applications of AI, even as the technology reshapes TikTok’s operations, from content creation and recommendations to search and moderation.

He cautioned that AI’s growing capabilities would require stronger safeguards, especially as autonomous systems become more widely used. “I think the cybersecurity risks are quite big,” he said, warning that users may grant AI agents extensive permissions without fully understanding the consequences.

Chew pointed to the risks of allowing AI agents to make purchases autonomously, saying the systems could buy more than users intended in their eagerness to complete a task. He also said increasingly sophisticated AI models make it significantly cheaper for malicious actors to carry out fraudulent activities.

“So you need the right tools to now you know defend against the fast falling cost of creating problems for platforms like us, security problems for us,” he said.

Editor's Summary

Chew predicted at a Singapore conference that AI will deliver major breakthroughs in physics, biotech, chemistry and materials science within two to three years. The comments came as ByteDance expands AI research and technology companies invest in AI-driven science, while Chew warned of cybersecurity and autonomous-agent risks.