The country’s state planner blocked US tech giant Meta’s purchase of Chinese artificial intelligence startup Manus, ordering the cancellation of the deal as Beijing and Washington jostle over supremacy in frontier industries.
Yesterday’s decision by China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) highlights Beijing’s commitment to stop AI talent and intellectual property from being acquired by US entities, as Washington tries to hamper its AI development with export controls designed to cut off access to US chips.
It could also add another thorny issue to the agenda of a planned mid-May Beijing summit between US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping.
California-based Meta, which owns Facebook, acquired Manus in December for more than US$2bil in a bid to boost its capabilities in AI agents, tools that can execute more complex tasks than chatbots with minimal human intervention.
Chief executive Xiao Hong and chief scientist Ji Yichao, who are usually based in Singapore, were reportedly summoned to a meeting in Beijing in March and told they were not allowed to leave China because of a regulatory review of the Meta acquisition.
Manus was hailed early last year by state media and commentators as China’s next DeepSeek after releasing what it said was the world’s first general AI agent.
Months later Manus moved its headquarters from China to Singapore, joining a wave of other Chinese companies that have done so to curb risks from the US-China tensions.
Alfredo Montufar-Helu, a managing director at Ankura China Advisors, said Beijing’s intervention reflects how AI has become central to strategic competition between the world’s two largest economies, with controls that were once focused on semiconductors now extending into AI.
“China is saying we will prevent the foreign acquisition of assets we consider important for national security – and AI is now clearly one of them,” he said, adding that the move also signals to firms that relocating overseas will not shield them from scrutiny.
Manus, created by startup Butterfly Effect, can sift through and summarise resumes or create a stock analysis website, according to its website. — Reuters/AFP
