At the DBS Asia Future Forward Conference in Singapore, TikTok chief executive Shou Zi Chew told the audience that artificial intelligence is poised to deliver genuine breakthroughs in fields such as physics, biotechnology, chemistry and material science within the next two to three years. He framed the outlook as a realistic possibility rather than speculative hype.
Chew’s remarks arrive as ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese parent, broadens its AI agenda beyond consumer-facing products. In April the company’s Seed research team released Protenix-v2, an AI system designed to predict and engineer biomolecular structures, a capability that could accelerate drug-discovery pipelines and other biotech applications.
The CEO highlighted that expanding AI power brings a pressing need to align machine behavior with human values. He asked how developers will ensure that increasingly autonomous models act in ways that are obvious and acceptable to people, underscoring the ethical dimension of rapid technical progress.
According to Chew, the current trajectory of AI development follows a steep curve, especially in scientific research. He suggested that short-term expectations may be inflated, yet the long-term impact of AI is likely being undervalued, implying that future discoveries could far exceed today’s imagination.
Industry investment mirrors this optimism. A recent collaboration among the U.S. government, Meta and Google announced a $1.8 billion program to create AI models that forecast cellular behavior, aiming to speed up biological research and pharmaceutical development. This effort reflects a broader trend of allocating substantial resources to AI-driven science.
Chew also warned that the expanding capabilities of AI raise significant cybersecurity concerns. He noted that users might grant AI agents extensive permissions without fully grasping the risks, potentially leading to unintended purchases or facilitating cheaper fraud. He called for stronger defensive tools to protect platforms from these emerging threats.