Meta’s $2bn AI deal under China’s microscope

Meta Platforms announced at the end of last year that it had acquired Manus, a Singapore-based developer of general-purpose AI agents. The deal, reported at approximately $2 billion, marked a rare US hyperscaler acquisition of an Asian technology company, and one that had only formally launched its first product earlier in the same year.

Manus went viral after releasing what it claimed was the world’s first general AI agent, capable of screening job candidates, planning travel, and analysing stock portfolios and outperforming OpenAI’s Deep Research on its own benchmarks.

In a market crowded with chatbot announcements and benchmark leaderboards, Manus did something unusual: it demonstrated commercially relevant autonomy at scale, reaching an annualised revenue run rate exceeding $125 million just eight months after launch.

From model race to agent race

The acquisition crystallises a shift that many have anticipated, but few have acted upon with conviction. The competitive battle in AI is moving from raw model performance towards agentic capabilities: systems that can act, plan, and execute on behalf of users and businesses without a human in the loop at every step.

That shift has profound implications. By late 2025, Manus had processed more than 147 trillion tokens and spun up over 80 million cloud virtual machines to serve users worldwide.

Meta said the acquisition was aimed at accelerating AI innovation for businesses and integrating advanced automation into its consumer and enterprise products, including its Meta AI assistant. Meta commented at the time, “Manus has built one of the leading autonomous general-purpose agents that can independently execute complex tasks like market research, coding, and data analysis. We will continue to operate and sell the Manus service, as well as integrate it into our products.

“Manus is already serving the daily needs of millions of users and businesses worldwide. It launched its first General AI Agent earlier this year and has already served more than 147T tokens and created more than 80M virtual computers. We plan to scale this service to many more businesses.

“Manus’s exceptional talent will join Meta’s team to deliver general-purpose agents across our consumer and business products, including in Meta AI.”

Manus’s CEO, Xiao Hong, framed the move as an opportunity to build on a stronger foundation while maintaining operational independence. “Joining Meta allows us to build on a stronger, more sustainable foundation without changing how Manus works or how decisions are made,” said Hong.

“We’re excited about what the future holds with Meta and Manus working together and we will continue to iterate the product and serve users who have defined Manus from the beginning.”

On paper, the acquisition is a clean story. In practice, it may be rather more complicated.

The deal is steeped in Singapore-washing accusations

The Manus deal has become a landmark test case for a trend that analysts had already labelled “Singapore-washing”, the practice whereby Chinese-founded companies relocate their headquarters to shed their Chinese identity, access Western capital, and avoid the regulatory scrutiny directed at China-based entities.

Ahead of the deal, Manus had undergone a radical identity reconstruction: shifting its headquarters to Singapore, reincorporating as a Singaporean entity, migrating its core team, and hollowing out its Chinese operations.

Of approximately 120 employees, only 40 core engineers made the move; the remainder were let go. The parent company restructured from a Beijing-centred operation into a Cayman-based holding company with a Singapore operating hub. By the time Meta came calling, Manus had done everything the playbook required.

It was not enough. China’s government confirmed it will review Meta’s acquisition to assess whether it complies with the country’s export controls and technology transfer policies.

China’s Ministry of Commerce is seeking to determine whether Manus’s core technology was developed in China and, if so, whether its transfer abroad complied with Chinese export-control law.

The message from Beijing is pointed: a company cannot simply rewrite the provenance of its algorithms through corporate restructuring. In the AI era, the nationality of technology is not determined by where a holding company is registered.

As one expert put it, “Singapore-washing is only credible and effective for companies which fully cut off their operational ties to China.” The Manus case suggests that even substantive operational separation may no longer be sufficient when the underlying intellectual property was developed under Chinese jurisdiction.

Meta has moved to address the political exposure directly. A company spokesperson confirmed there would be no continuing Chinese ownership interests in Manus following the transaction and that all services and operations in China would be wound down.

The Manus acquisition is Meta’s fifth AI-focused purchase of 2025, in a year when the company allocated at least $70 billion in capital expenditure for AI infrastructure. Alongside the Manus deal, Meta invested $14.3 billion in AI data labelling firm Scale AI in June, in a transaction that brought founder Alexandr Wang directly into Meta’s AI leadership structure.

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