AI startup Manus said Tuesday it would resume “operating as an independent company,” months after Beijing blocked Meta’s multi-billion-dollar acquisition of the Chinese-developed, Singapore-based company.
Some data going back to late December will be deleted as a result, and Manus urged users impacted by the change to back up their data.
“This is part of our separation from Meta; we must take this step to comply with regulatory requirements in specific parts of the world,” Manus said in a blog post.
Meta agreed to acquire Manus, an artificial intelligence (AI) agent developed by the startup Butterfly Effect, in a deal reportedly worth around $2 billion.
AI agents are software programs that are designed to perform tasks without human intervention.
Meta pursued a deal with Manus to “bring a leading agent to billions of people and unlock opportunities for businesses across our products, the social media giant said in December when it announced the deal.
However, China’s top economic planning body blocked the deal in April and ordered them to “withdraw the acquisition.”
At the same time, Beijing also reportedly restricted travel for two of Manus’ co-founders, preventing them from leaving China.
Meta previously told AFP in a statement that “the transaction complied fully with applicable law”.
China has been cracking down on a practice known as “Singapore-washing,” which is when companies leave the country to take advantage of looser regulations, global customers or funding opportunities.
Beijing “tolerated” it for a while, but “the Manus case marks a major turning point” as the US-China AI race heats up, Wendy Chang at the Mercator Institute for China Studies told AFP in April.
The crackdown is a signal “to its own tech leaders, more than to anybody else, that attempts to bypass national regulation will not be tolerated,” Chang continued.
Many of Manus’ former investors are in discussions to retake stakes in the startup at a $2 billion valuation, including Tencent which would become its largest shareholder, the FT reported.
– Meta Manifesto –
In the United States, the unwinding of the Manus deal may be a temporary setback for Meta, which is racing to strengthen its position in AI.
In a long essay published Monday about the future of artificial intelligence, Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg called for the United States to compete against China, prevent “government tyranny” over AI and ensure that “superintelligence” technology will become available to everyone.
Superintelligence is a theoretical point when AI’s capabilities exceed human intelligence.
