TikTok chief executive Shou Zi Chew has predicted that artificial intelligence will deliver major scientific breakthroughs in physics, biotechnology, chemistry and materials science within the next two to three years, while warning that increasingly autonomous systems pose significant cybersecurity risks.

Speaking at the DBS Asia Future Forward Conference in Singapore on Monday, 12 October, Chew said advances in AI were accelerating scientific research, although the technology’s longer-term capabilities remained difficult to predict.

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

Chew’s comments come as ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese parent company, expands its AI research beyond consumer applications. In April, its Seed research team unveiled Protenix-v2, a model designed to predict and support the design of biomolecular structures, with potential applications in drug discovery.

The company is exploring collaboration with scientists to advance research, Chew said, as technology businesses and governments invest in AI tools for scientific discovery.

Last week, the US government, Meta and Google announced their participation in a $1.8 billion initiative to develop AI models capable of predicting cellular behaviour, with the aim of accelerating biological research and drug discovery.

However, Chew warned that the growing use of AI agents, which can execute tasks rather than simply answer questions, creates security challenges for businesses and consumers.

Users granting agents access to credit cards or other services could inadvertently authorise purchases beyond their intentions, he said, arguing that greater education was needed to help people understand the permissions they give these systems.

For businesses, Chew said AI was reducing the cost of generating spam and other malicious activity, making it harder for platforms to defend against abuse. Companies must invest in tools that make large-scale attacks more expensive for perpetrators, he added.

Chew also cautioned employees against sharing trade secrets or privileged legal information with public AI chatbots, saying organisations needed clearer boundaries around acceptable use.

Despite these risks, he said AI’s long-term impact could exceed current expectations. “I think in the short term we are probably overestimating it, but in the long term we are probably underestimating it,” he said.

Chew added that people needed hands-on experience with AI tools to understand their capabilities and limitations, rather than relying solely on reading about the technology.

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