AIBRIEF
More than four months after Beijing vetoed Meta's acquisition, Manus has resumed operations as an "independent agent lab" and is reopening a portal for users to recover erased data.
Beijing blocked Meta's US$2 billion bid to acquire Manus, a Chinese-founded AI start-up that builds autonomous agents for tasks like web research and report writing, before the deal could close in late December. On Tuesday, Manus said it had resumed operations on its own: repositioned as an "independent agent lab" and still led by its original founding team, according to a company blog post quoted by the South China Morning Post.
The acquisition collapsed more than four months ago, on December 29, the date Meta's deal would have closed. The blog post said the company would now "usher in the next chapter" as a standalone lab. Beijing's blocking action was reported without a named regulator going on the record; only the company-side reaction is public.
About three weeks before Tuesday's announcement, Manus told users it had erased data generated on or after December 29 "to comply with regulatory requirements in specific parts of the world." Affected users can now recover that work through a Manus restoration portal.
The collapse could set a precedent for how Chinese-founded AI start-ups navigate cross-border sales. What remains unknown is which Chinese regulator intervened, which jurisdictions triggered the data erasure, and whether Meta will pursue a different path with the Manus team.