The least surprising chapter in Manos’ story is what happens now

Well, the United States and China are in an all-out race to build the most powerful artificial intelligence on the planet. Beijing is spending billions on local models, tightening its grip on the technology sector, and watching nervously as its best AI talent gravitates to American companies. A Carnegie Endowment study, published late last year, found that 87 of the top 100 Chinese AI researchers at US institutions in 2019 are still there.

However, Manus – one of China’s most interesting AI startups – quietly moved to Singapore and sold itself to Meta for $2 billion. Did anyone think he would be there? no Have the account on this tie-up?

As industry observers know, Manus burst onto the scene last spring with a demo video showing an AI agent screening job candidates, planning vacations, and analyzing stock portfolios, and cheekily claiming to have outperformed OpenAI’s Deep Research. Within weeks, Benchmark — a leading Silicon Valley venture firm — led a $75 million funding round at a $500 million valuation. That was surprising. (Senator John Cornyn had ideas, tweeting at the time: “Who thinks it’s a good idea for American investors to back our biggest AI adversary, only for the Chinese Communist Party to use that technology to challenge us economically and militarily? Not me.”)

By December, Manus had millions of users and was generating annual recurring revenue of more than $100 million. Then Meta came calling, and Mark Zuckerberg, who had bet the company’s future on artificial intelligence, bought the company for $2 billion.

It is worth noting that Manos did not just sell himself to an American buyer; It has spent the better part of the past year actively trying to operate outside China’s orbit. The company moved its headquarters and core team from Beijing to Singapore, restructured its ownership, and following the announcement of the Meta deal, Meta pledged to sever all ties with Chinese investors in Manus and completely close its China operations. By all accounts, Manos was trying to position itself as a Singaporean company.

But if that series of events raised eyebrows in Washington, you can only imagine that in Beijing they were apoplectic.

China has a phrase to describe all this: “selling young crops” — domestic AI companies that move abroad and sell themselves to foreign buyers before they are fully mature, taking their intellectual property and talent with them.

Beijing hates it and has spent years proving that no company operates outside its control. Sure, we all remember that time when Jack Ma gave a speech in 2020, mildly criticizing Chinese regulators, and then disappeared from public life for months, Ant Group’s massive IPO was halted overnight, and Alibaba was fined $2.8 billion. China then spent the next two years systematically dismantling its thriving technology sector, wiping hundreds of billions in market value. Chinese leaders are many things, but skill is not one of them.

That’s why it wasn’t entirely surprising when the Financial Times reported on Tuesday that Manos’ founders, Xiao Hong and Ji Yizhao, were summoned to a meeting this month with China’s National Development and Reform Commission and told they wouldn’t be leaving the country for a while. No formal charges have been filed — just an investigation into whether the Meta deal violated Beijing’s foreign investment rules.

Beijing describes it as a routine regulatory review.

At some point, someone on Manus may have thought they had gotten away with it, and perhaps they will continue to do so. But given the risks of the AI ​​race, it was always going to be a big gamble. Now Beijing wants answers; And it’s clear that the Manos founders aren’t going anywhere until they get them.