Byte AI Pharmaceuticals initiates split financing, AI4S enters industrialization phase.

It is reported that the AI pharmaceutical business unit of ByteDance has initiated the process of splitting and independent financing. It is reported that after the split, ByteDance will still hold the controlling stake in the new company, and the core team, core algorithms, technical platform, and existing pipeline assets of AI pharmaceutical will enter the new entity as a whole. At the same time, the business will continue to receive computing power support from the Volcano Engine. The new company will be led and managed by the ByteDance AI pharmaceutical team. The ByteDance AI pharmaceutical team was established in 2021 and is led by Liu Kai. It is reported that the core team consists of about 50 members, including AI4S algorithm talents and senior experts in the pharmaceutical field. Since its establishment, the team has been responsible for the core functions from basic model research to industrialization. Previously, the team responsible for protein structure prediction models within ByteDance has been integrated into the AI pharmaceutical team led by Liu Kai. The related algorithm model team has completed integration and will continue to promote research on basic models in this field, while a few personnel have resigned. The progress of ByteDance AI pharmaceutical business is an important foundation for the split financing this time. ByteDance has achieved multiple technological breakthroughs in the field of AI pharmaceuticals. In 2025, the ByteDance AI4S team released the molecular structure prediction models Protenix and Seedfold, and iterated Protenix-v1/v2 in 2026, building high-precision open-source structure prediction capabilities for biological complexes such as proteins and ligands. In terms of protein design and prediction, the team has also launched tools like PXDesign for protein binder design.