China to probe Meta’s acquisition of AI outfit Manus
(2026/01/09)
- Reference: 1767930519
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2026/01/09/china_probes_meta_manus_acquisition/
- Source link:
Chinese authorities have signalled they’ll likely probe Meta’s planned acquisition of made-in-China AI platform Manus.
Meta [1]announced the acquisition on December 29, 2025, and said Manus will become part of its consumer and business products.
On Thursday, a spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Commerce [2]said Beijing intends to investigate the acquisition to ensure it won’t infringe China’s export controls or foreign investment laws.
[3]
That’s an interesting move, because Manus appears to have tried to distance itself from China. As [4]explained by Letian Cheng, a Ph.D. student at the School of Public Policy at Georgia Institute of Technology, after its early success, Manus “closed its Wuhan and Beijing offices, deleted its Chinese social media account, fired Chinese employees except for the core team, and moved to Singapore.”
[5]
[6]
Cheng labeled Manus’s actions “Identity Engineering” and suggests the company tried to decouple from China after receiving an investment from US-based venture capital firm Benchmark, and “to avoid foreign blockades and utilize American LLM APIs such as Claude.”
[7]Trump says Nvidia can sell H200s to China – if Washington gets a 25 percent cut
[8]Pay and pray: Nvidia reportedly wants money up front for Chinese H200 orders
[9]Nvidia DMs TSMC: Please sir can I have some more? The Chinese are starved for H200s
[10]China turns on a vast experimental network it says is an heir to ARPANET
“From the angle of the Chinese government, the acquisition was especially alarming as it sets a dangerous precedent that domestic innovators could just abscond to the U.S. despite all the support they gained from the domestic talent pool, policy encouragement, and industry advantage,” Cheng wrote.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang often praises the quality of Chinese AI researchers, and notes that China is home to a larger population of scientists investigating AI than any other nation. Huang concludes that the USA should allow exports of Nvidia GPUs to the Middle Kingdom to ensure Chinese AI talent works with American tech. China, however, increasingly promotes use of homegrown tech, and has reportedly [11]ordered some local companies not to buy Nvidia’s H200 accelerators despite the Trump administration’s [12]policy flip that allowed the GPUs into the Middle Kingdom.
The probe into Meta’s acquisition of Manus will therefore take place at a time when China has many reasons to consider how it wants to regulate tech companies, at home and abroad.
[13]
Remember, too, that the deal allowing the sale of Chinese social network TikTok’s US operations has yet to conclude, and that Beijing was in no rush to move it towards completion. That sale was necessary after USA lawmakers concluded allowing TikTok to operate under Chinese ownership represented a threat to national security. And now Meta plans to make the China-origin Manus a big part of its future products. ®
Get our [14]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/30/meta_acquires_manus/?_gl=1*krvvo8*_ga*MTI0MjE1MDMxNS4xNzE5OTg5NTg5*_ga_JXW44Y23NM*czE3Njc5Mjc0NDckbzE3NDIkZzEkdDE3Njc5Mjc0NTIkajU1JGwwJGgw
[2] https://www.mofcom.gov.cn/xwfbzt/2026/swbzklxxwfbh2026n1y8r/index.html
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aWCLaBdzBnmiQlgA9oLlcwAAAdI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://www.internetgovernance.org/2026/01/07/identity-engineering-why-a-leading-chinese-ai-startup-abandons-its-home-market/
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aWCLaBdzBnmiQlgA9oLlcwAAAdI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aWCLaBdzBnmiQlgA9oLlcwAAAdI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/09/trump_gpu_export_ban_reversal/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/08/nvidia_h200_china/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/31/china_nvidia_h200/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/19/china_environment_for_network_innovation/
[11] https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-asks-tech-firms-halt-orders-nvidias-h200-chips-information-reports-2026-01-07/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/09/trump_gpu_export_ban_reversal/?_gl=1*v3g4d3*_ga*MTI0MjE1MDMxNS4xNzE5OTg5NTg5*_ga_JXW44Y23NM*czE3Njc5Mjc0NDckbzE3NDIkZzEkdDE3Njc5MjkyNjgkajQzJGwwJGgw
[13] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aWCLaBdzBnmiQlgA9oLlcwAAAdI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[14] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Meta [1]announced the acquisition on December 29, 2025, and said Manus will become part of its consumer and business products.
On Thursday, a spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Commerce [2]said Beijing intends to investigate the acquisition to ensure it won’t infringe China’s export controls or foreign investment laws.
[3]
That’s an interesting move, because Manus appears to have tried to distance itself from China. As [4]explained by Letian Cheng, a Ph.D. student at the School of Public Policy at Georgia Institute of Technology, after its early success, Manus “closed its Wuhan and Beijing offices, deleted its Chinese social media account, fired Chinese employees except for the core team, and moved to Singapore.”
[5]
[6]
Cheng labeled Manus’s actions “Identity Engineering” and suggests the company tried to decouple from China after receiving an investment from US-based venture capital firm Benchmark, and “to avoid foreign blockades and utilize American LLM APIs such as Claude.”
[7]Trump says Nvidia can sell H200s to China – if Washington gets a 25 percent cut
[8]Pay and pray: Nvidia reportedly wants money up front for Chinese H200 orders
[9]Nvidia DMs TSMC: Please sir can I have some more? The Chinese are starved for H200s
[10]China turns on a vast experimental network it says is an heir to ARPANET
“From the angle of the Chinese government, the acquisition was especially alarming as it sets a dangerous precedent that domestic innovators could just abscond to the U.S. despite all the support they gained from the domestic talent pool, policy encouragement, and industry advantage,” Cheng wrote.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang often praises the quality of Chinese AI researchers, and notes that China is home to a larger population of scientists investigating AI than any other nation. Huang concludes that the USA should allow exports of Nvidia GPUs to the Middle Kingdom to ensure Chinese AI talent works with American tech. China, however, increasingly promotes use of homegrown tech, and has reportedly [11]ordered some local companies not to buy Nvidia’s H200 accelerators despite the Trump administration’s [12]policy flip that allowed the GPUs into the Middle Kingdom.
The probe into Meta’s acquisition of Manus will therefore take place at a time when China has many reasons to consider how it wants to regulate tech companies, at home and abroad.
[13]
Remember, too, that the deal allowing the sale of Chinese social network TikTok’s US operations has yet to conclude, and that Beijing was in no rush to move it towards completion. That sale was necessary after USA lawmakers concluded allowing TikTok to operate under Chinese ownership represented a threat to national security. And now Meta plans to make the China-origin Manus a big part of its future products. ®
Get our [14]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/30/meta_acquires_manus/?_gl=1*krvvo8*_ga*MTI0MjE1MDMxNS4xNzE5OTg5NTg5*_ga_JXW44Y23NM*czE3Njc5Mjc0NDckbzE3NDIkZzEkdDE3Njc5Mjc0NTIkajU1JGwwJGgw
[2] https://www.mofcom.gov.cn/xwfbzt/2026/swbzklxxwfbh2026n1y8r/index.html
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aWCLaBdzBnmiQlgA9oLlcwAAAdI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://www.internetgovernance.org/2026/01/07/identity-engineering-why-a-leading-chinese-ai-startup-abandons-its-home-market/
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aWCLaBdzBnmiQlgA9oLlcwAAAdI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aWCLaBdzBnmiQlgA9oLlcwAAAdI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/09/trump_gpu_export_ban_reversal/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/08/nvidia_h200_china/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/31/china_nvidia_h200/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/19/china_environment_for_network_innovation/
[11] https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-asks-tech-firms-halt-orders-nvidias-h200-chips-information-reports-2026-01-07/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/09/trump_gpu_export_ban_reversal/?_gl=1*v3g4d3*_ga*MTI0MjE1MDMxNS4xNzE5OTg5NTg5*_ga_JXW44Y23NM*czE3Njc5Mjc0NDckbzE3NDIkZzEkdDE3Njc5MjkyNjgkajQzJGwwJGgw
[13] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aWCLaBdzBnmiQlgA9oLlcwAAAdI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[14] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/