Meta, Mark Zuckerberg’s U.S. tech giant, has reportedly paid ‘billions’ to acquire a Chinese startup. That startup is Manus, a company that specializes in artificial intelligence. Their website describes the product – also called Manus – as ‘the action engine that goes beyond answers to execute tasks, automate workflows, and extend your human reach.’
The value of the deal isn’t public knowledge as both companies agreed to keep the figure under wraps. However Chinese media sources are reporting that the numbers were in the ‘billions of U.S. dollars.’
Manus was founded in 2024 by a team of Chinese entrepreneurs and tech wizards. It quickly gained attention for making very capable AI software. If you need proof of how capable that software was, know that Manus was hitting US $100 million revenue within nine months of founding.
To swerve U.S. restrictions on Chinese tech, the company relocated from their Wuhan base to Singapore, where they felt better able to bear uncertain geopolitical winds. As a result of the deal, Manus will sever all ties with Chinese ownership and discontinue its mainland China business. Manus’ CEO, Xiao Hong, will be reporting directly to the top dogs at Meta and Meta’s AI capabilities will get a hefty capability boost.
Taking a wider look at this offers some interesting perspectives. Chinese tech adoption by western industry leaders is growing. Meta has reportedly been using Qwen – a set of AI models developed by Chinese megafirm Alibaba (阿里巴巴) – to train its own AI models, a move touted as a big win for Chinese tech. Chinese open-source models have reportedly been used at Microsoft and Amazon too.
In the rivalry broadly defined as one between Chinese open-source models (with code available for anyone to read and copy), and western closed-door models (where companies keep their research and code secret), the Manus-Meta deal is another sign that shared ecosystems fare better. It’s also a sign that U.S. tech giants aren’t shy about spending big bucks to acquire competition from the Chinese market when they think it’ll also buy them competitive advantage.
