The acquisition faced near immediate scrutiny from Chinese authorities.
AI start-up Manus is going back to being an independent business after Meta’s $2bn-plus acquisition of the company was ordered to be unwound by Chinese authorities over national security concerns.
“We must take this step to comply with regulatory requirements in specific parts of the world,” Manus said in a blog post yesterday (11 August). As part of these changes, it said that some of its users may lose the data they generated using Manus’ AI.
“As we look to the future, we’re already preparing a series of new features that will push the boundaries of what’s possible for general AI agents once again.”
Meta acquired the Singapore-headquartered Manus (developed by China’s Butterfly Effect) late last December as part of its continued push into agentic AI.
