During the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC 2026), United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres and senior dignitaries from multiple countries visited Matwings Technology's exhibition booth for exchanges.
Hong Liang, Founder and Chief Scientist of Matwings Technology and Distinguished Professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, introduced the company's core proprietary technology — the dialogue-driven protein R&D agent MatwingsVenus™ (Xiaowu™) — to Secretary-General Guterres. Unlike AlphaFold, which focuses on protein structure prediction, MatwingsVenus™ is built on an underlying labeled functional protein database that enables direct prediction of protein function from sequence. Through dry-wet closed-loop iterative optimization, it delivers end-to-end protein product development, slashing the traditional protein R&D cycle from 2–5 years to just 2–6 months, cutting the number of required experimental runs from tens of thousands to mere hundreds, and lifting single-sample success rates from 5% to 30%.
On the platform, users do not need to write code or build custom models: they can issue instructions via natural conversation as in daily communication to complete protein design and property prediction, and launch the full workflow of synthesis and functional validation in the automated laboratory with one click. This drastically lowers the threshold for protein R&D. Making AI-powered R&D innovations affordable and accessible to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and research institutions with limited funding is an important practice for building inclusive, widely beneficial AI. Secretary-General Guterres expressed full appreciation for this vision and practice.
Throughout the visit, Secretary-General Guterres paid close attention to the real-world impact and core value of the technology. Upon learning that MatwingsVenus™ has already enabled multiple industrialized outcomes — for example, designing a high-performance plastic-degrading enzyme in only 6 months that converts waste plastic into recycled raw materials for reuse in clothing, footwear, and plastic packaging — the Secretary-General repeatedly praised the achievements of AI in empowering green industries and advancing sustainable development, remarking simply: "Very impressive."
