By Rest of World
Publication Date: 2026-01-09 11:00:00
Meta’s acquisition of Manus, a Chinese artificial intelligence startup, quickly turned from a celebration to a complication.
The Chinese government has said it will review the estimated $2 billion deal announced on December 29 to determine whether it complies with the country’s export controls and technology transfer policies. Manus was founded in China in 2024 but moved its headquarters to Singapore months before the deal with Meta.
The investigation has turned what was hailed as global support for Chinese startup talent into a stark warning about how far founders can go when abandoning their Chinese roots to secure Silicon Valley funding.
The way Beijing handles the case will be the first signal of how aggressively China plans to monitor the overseas flow of its AI technology and talent at a time when the tech rivalry between China and the US is heating up.
“Manus left China to pursue international market opportunities just before…
