Speaking at the DBS Asia Future Forward Conference in Singapore on Monday, Chew said the pace of progress in AI, particularly in science, is "trending on a very steep curve at this moment in time."
"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," he said.
His comments come as ByteDance, TikTok's Chinese parent, expands its AI research beyond consumer products. In April, the company's Seed research team unveiled Protenix-v2, an AI model focused on biomolecular structure prediction and design, with potential applications in drug discovery.
Chew acknowledged that the short-term impact of AI may be overstated while its long-term potential is underappreciated.
"I think in the short term we are probably overestimating it, but in the long term we are probably underestimating it," he said.
He also warned that stronger safeguards are needed as autonomous systems become more widely adopted, saying "the cybersecurity risks are quite big" and that users may grant AI agents extensive permissions, including the ability to make purchases, without fully understanding the consequences.
The optimism comes amid heavy investment in AI-driven science elsewhere. Last week, the U.S. government, Meta and Google announced their participation in a $1.8 billion initiative to develop AI models that predict how cells behave, aimed at accelerating biological research and drug discovery.
Chew said ByteDance is exploring ways to collaborate with scientists on research. "There's been some work that we've done in this area, and it is very exciting," he said.