San Francisco, USA: Mark Zuckerberg-led Meta Platforms’ ambitions to become one of the leading AI players hit a major roadblock after Chinese authorities blocked its attempt to acquire AI startup Manus. The Chinese startup has been on a roll recently, as it scaled to its operations to almost $100 million in just eight months.
The deal had earlier raised eyebrows, as it was founded in China but later relocated to Singapore. Mark Zuckerberg was expecting to pay almost $2 billion for the startup, as a strategic move as the company was looking to integrate Manus’ virtual assistant operations to Meta’s Llama ecosystem. Manus had developed AI agents that could navigate the web, use software and execute complex workflows with minimal human oversight.
Chinese authorities blocked the deal, citing national security and data sovereignty, as countries continue to protect its intellectual property in the midst of the global AI arms race. The startup was highly praised for its lean architecture, allowing it to achieve performance levels that could rival Silicon Valley giants with significantly less computing power.
If the deal had gone through, this would have meant transfer of massive datasets to the US as the to train Manus’ models. Analysts have also viewed this as a tit for tat response to the US goverment’s orders restricting American investments by Chinese companies.
