Last week, AI agent company Manus was acquired by Meta for a reported $2 billion. The acquisition is seen as Meta’s attempt to find a smarter way to offer AI agents and generate revenue from business customers. According to Reuters, Chinese authorities have launched an investigation into the purchase.
Although now based in Singapore, Manus was originally founded in China with offices in Wuhan and Beijing. The investigation is being conducted to ensure the purchase is legal because Chinese law does not allow AI models created by local companies to be sold and employees to be transferred out of other countries without government permission.
This is why the sale of TikTok’s business in the United States took so long, as the app will use a different algorithm in the country. The new algorithm for TikTok America will use the tastes and data of users in the country. There were allegations that the previous algorithm was anti-Semitic because it depicted the genocide in Palestine.
After the acquisition, Manus no longer offers services to customers from China. No reason was given but this certainly attracted the attention of the authorities.
