Meta to buy Chinese startup Manus in deal worth ‘$2- $3 billion’ to boost advanced AI

Meta said on Monday it would acquire Chinese-founded artificial intelligence startup Manus, as the technology giant accelerates efforts to integrate advanced AI across its platforms.

Financial terms of its transaction with Manus were not released, but a source with direct knowledge of the matter said the deal values the Singapore-based firm at between $2 billion and $3 billion.

Manus did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Once hailed as China’s next DeepSeek, Manus went viral earlier this year on X by releasing what it claimed to be the world’s first general AI agent, capable of making decisions and executing tasks autonomously, with much less prompting required than AI chatbots.

Beijing has since shown interest in supporting Manus, which claims performance of its AI agent surpasses that of OpenAI’s DeepResearch. The company also has a strategic partnership with Alibaba to collaborate on their AI models.

Meta will operate and sell the Manus service and integrate it into its consumer and business products, including in Meta AI, the company said.

Tech giants such as Meta have been ramping up AI investments through strategic acquisitions and talent hires as they navigate fierce industry competition. Earlier this year, the Facebook-owner invested in Scale AI in a deal that valued the data-labeling startup at $29 billion and brought in its 28-year-old CEO, Alexandr Wang.

Manus, backed by its parent Beijing Butterfly Effect Technology, raised $75 million this year at a valuation of around $500 million, according to media reports. U.S. venture firm Benchmark led the funding round.

It is among a flurry of Chinese firms that have domiciled in Singapore in recent years, betting a move to the trade-focused city-state would reduce risks their operations get disrupted by Sino-U.S. geopolitical tensions.

(Reporting by Harshita Mary Varghese in Bengaluru; additional reporting by Mihika Sharma in Bengaluru, Kane Wu in Hong Kong, Xinghui Kok in Singapore; Editing by Nivedita Bhattacharjee, Miyoung Kim and Sam Holmes)