China prevents the American “Meta” from acquiring an artificial intelligence system

Yesterday, China announced that it had blocked the American technology giant Meta’s acquisition of Manus, an artificial intelligence system developed by a Chinese start-up company currently based in Singapore, against the backdrop of technological competition with the United States.

The American company, which owns Facebook and Instagram, announced at the end of December 2025 that it had reached an agreement to acquire Manus.

But analysts warned that the deal could be hampered by regulatory bodies, and the Financial Times reported last month that Beijing had prevented the startup’s two founding partners from leaving China.

The National Development and Reform Commission, an influential Chinese economic planning body, said in a statement that the body in charge of reviewing the deal “issued a decision banning investment related to the acquisition of the Manus project by foreign investors.”

She noted that she “called on the parties concerned to cancel the acquisition.”

The “Butterfly Effect” startup company in Beijing developed the “Manus” system, which caught the public’s attention in March 2025, after a demonstration clip of it was widely circulated on social media. The system, available via invitation to companies, sparked immediate interest.

“Manos” is considered an artificial intelligence system, and does not belong to the same category of conversational assistants as the Chinese “DeepSeek” or the American “OpenAI” (Chat GPT). The latter provides answers to inquiries through a conversational interface, while “Manos” was designed to be able to carry out tasks independently “from beginning to end,” such as sorting resumes or booking flights.

The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs referred to “Manos” as another example of Chinese innovation, after the sudden breakthrough in early 2025 of the “R1” model developed by the “Deep Sec” company.