Manus to return as independent company after China forced Meta to unwind $2 billion deal

Manus said Tuesday it will "soon resume operating as an independent company," after Chinese regulators in April demanded Meta unwind its $2 billion acquisition of the artificial intelligence startup.

Last December, Meta announced it acquired Manus, a developer of general purpose AI agents that was founded in China in 2022 before relocating to Singapore. The deal quickly attracted scrutiny from Beijing and Washington, with Chinese officials investigating whether it violated the country's rules on foreign investment.

The country's National Development and Reform Commission issued its decision in April, instructing the parties to withdraw the transaction. That kickstarted a complicated unwinding process. Beijing has since tightened tech export controls on cross-border deals, as the U.S. and China compete for talent, hardware and data amid an intensifying AI race.

Manus said Tuesday that some users will need to back up their data generated on or after December 29, 2025, the date the Meta deal was announced.

"This is part of our separation from Meta; we must take this step to comply with regulatory requirements in specific parts of the world," the company wrote.

Meta had planned to implement Manus' technology in its consumer and enterprise products. The deal came amid a string of aggressive AI expansion by Meta, which has been working to build a subscription business around the technology and compete with Google and top AI labs Anthropic and OpenAI.

Last week, Meta released its first coding agent, marking its latest attempt to generate revenue from AI.

--CNBC's Anniek Bao contributed reporting to this story.