ByteDance Spins Off AI Drug Discovery Business for Independent Financing, AI4S Enters Industrial Phase

ByteDance has spun off its AI-driven drug discovery division into an independent entity, initiating a new financing process. The new entity, led by Liu Kai and comprising around 50 members, will retain control under ByteDance. It will continue to receive computational support from ByteDance's Volcano Engine cloud platform. The drug discovery team was established in 2021, focusing on foundational model research. Over the past five years, the team has built an impressive portfolio of technologies, including the Protenix and Seedfold models, set to be released in 2025, which achieve high accuracy in predicting protein structures.