ByteDance expands AI drug-discovery work through Anew Labs and US hiring

ByteDance is making significant strides in artificial intelligence with its dedicated drug-discovery unit, Anew Labs, while also hiring in the US for nearly 100 open roles within its AI division. The Shanghai-based division has been actively presenting its AI-developed therapies at international conferences, and job postings show work on building science models to help the company pursue drug discovery and design.

Also known as Anew Therapeutics or ByteDance AI Drug Discovery, the team operates from three major locations: Shanghai, Singapore and San Jose in California. Anew Labs has a team of 36 core members and a scientific advisory board that includes former executives and scientists from biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies.

In mid-April, the head of biology at Anew Labs presented one of the unit’s four pipeline drug candidates at Immunology2026 in Boston. The treatment was designed by generative AI for specific autoimmune diseases. Later in April, the head of data at Anew Labs attended the International Conference on Learning Representations in Rio de Janeiro, an event focused on advancing deep learning technology.

The head of computational chemistry at Anew Labs has announced participation in the 2026 Free Energy Workshop in Barcelona, Spain, starting on May 4. The presentation will cover AnewSampling, a framework for reproducing molecular dynamics at an all-atom level.

ByteDance is also hiring in the US for nearly 100 open roles within Seed, its AI team established in 2023 and now with labs across the US, Singapore and China. The open roles include producing international data for large language models, advancing text, image and video generation tools, doing research to develop human-like AI, and building science models to help the company pursue drug discovery and design.