Jan 6 (Reuters) – Chinese language officers are reviewing Meta’s (META) $2 billion acquisition of synthetic intelligence startup Manus for attainable know-how 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 know-how to Singapore and the resultant sale to Meta required an export license beneath Chinese language legislation, the report stated.
Whereas the assessment is in its preliminary levels and should not result in a proper investigation, the necessity for a license may present Beijing with an avenue to affect the transaction, together with, in an excessive case, attempting to power 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 12 months on X after it launched what it claimed was the world’s first basic AI agent, able to making selections and executing duties autonomously, with a lot much less prompting required than AI chatbots resembling ChatGPT and DeepSeek.
(Reporting by Gnaneshwar Rajan in Bengaluru; Modifying by Rashmi Aich)