Jan 6 (Reuters) – Chinese language officers are reviewing Meta’s (META) $2 billion acquisition of synthetic intelligence startup Manus for potential expertise management violations, the Monetary Occasions reported on Tuesday, citing two folks aware of the matter.
Reuters couldn’t instantly confirm the report. Meta and Manus didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.
Chinese language commerce ministry officers started assessing whether or not the relocation of Manus’ employees and expertise to Singapore and the ensuing sale to Meta required an export license below Chinese language legislation, the report mentioned.
Whereas the evaluation is in its preliminary levels and will not result in a proper investigation, the necessity for a license might present Beijing with an avenue to affect the transaction, together with, in an excessive case, attempting to pressure the events to desert the deal, the report added.
Meta acquired Manus final month, when a supply aware of the matter instructed Reuters that the deal values the Singapore-based agency at between $2 billion and $3 billion.
Manus went viral early this yr on X after it launched what it claimed was the world’s first basic AI agent, able to making choices and executing duties autonomously, with a lot much less prompting required than AI chatbots resembling ChatGPT and DeepSeek.
(Reporting by Gnaneshwar Rajan in Bengaluru; Enhancing by Rashmi Aich)
