China Blocks Manus AI Acquisition, Meta Cancels Rp35 Trillion Deal
META Platforms, the parent company of Facebook, will fully cancel its acquisition of the Chinese-founded artificial intelligence (AI) startup Manus. The move comes more than three months after Beijing blocked the transaction worth approximately US$2 billion, or around Rp35 trillion, on national security grounds.
The cancellation of the transaction marks one of the latest developments in the technological separation between the United States (US) and China, particularly in the artificial intelligence sector, which has become a strategic arena of competition between the two countries.
Manus, through a notice to users on Tuesday (11/8) local time, said it would delete data created by ‘certain users’ since 29 December, coinciding with the period after Meta acquired the startup.
Affected users have been asked to back up their data by 23 August. Meanwhile, other users can continue to use Manus services without disruption.
Manus said the data deletion was necessary ‘to comply with regulatory requirements in certain regions of the world’. However, the company did not specifically explain which regulation or country was being referred to.
The move is part of Manus’s transition process to return to operating independently after the transaction with Meta was cancelled.
Manus was launched in March 2025 as an AI agent platform capable of automatically carrying out various tasks on behalf of users, including browsing the internet and compiling reports.
The platform was developed by Butterfly Effect, a startup founded in 2022. The company previously had offices in Beijing and Wuhan before rebranding Manus as a Singapore-based company last year.
During that process, the company laid off a number of China-based workers and removed most of its online presence in the country.
The structural change allowed Manus to avoid a number of US restrictions related to capital and technology flows to China. Manus also gained access to US AI models from companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic, as well as advanced semiconductor chips from Nvidia.
The move then paved the way for Meta’s acquisition of Manus in late December, with a reported value of US$2 billion, or around Rp35 trillion.
The acquisition became one of the rare examples of technological cooperation between US and Chinese companies amid the increasingly sharp technology rivalry between Washington and Beijing.
However, the transaction immediately drew the attention of the Chinese government. Beijing conducted a months-long investigation to determine whether the acquisition violated provisions in China.
The investigation concluded in April with an order for Meta and Manus to fully cancel the transaction. The Chinese government based its decision on national security considerations.
In its latest notice to users, Manus did not explain in detail how the company would operate after returning to being an independent company.
The Financial Times reported in July that Chinese technology company Tencent Holdings was in negotiations to become Manus’s largest new shareholder. A number of Manus’s early Chinese investors, including ZhenFund and HSG, were also said to be involved in discussions regarding the cancellation of the transaction.
Since being acquired by Meta, Manus’s AI agent technology has been integrated into a number of Meta’s core products, including Instagram. Some members of the Manus team also previously gained access to Meta’s offices and corporate accounts in Singapore.
After the acquisition cancellation process is completed, Manus user data will remain stored in the US and Singapore, according to the company’s latest notice.
The cancellation of the Manus acquisition demonstrates the increasingly complex nature of technology business relations between the US and China. AI companies with access to technology, capital and infrastructure from both countries face increasingly stringent scrutiny on the grounds of national security and regulation.