China announced on Monday that it was blocking the acquisition by the American giant Meta of Manus, an artificial intelligence (AI) agent designed by a Chinese startup now based in Singapore, amid technological rivalry with the United States.

The American company, owner of Facebook and Instagram, announced at the end of December 2025 that it had reached an agreement to acquire Manus.

But analysts had warned that the deal could be blocked by regulators. The Financial Times reported last month that Beijing had barred the two co-founders of the Chinese startup from leaving China.

The National Development and Reform Commission, China's powerful economic planning agency, said on Monday that it had "issued a decision to prohibit investment regarding the acquisition of the Manus project by foreign investors".

The body "demands that the parties concerned cancel this acquisition transaction," it stressed in a statement.

Designed by the Beijing-based startup Butterfly Effect, Manus became known to the general public in March 2025 after a demonstration video went viral on social media.

Accessible by invitation only to companies, it quickly generated enthusiasm.

Manus is an AI agent and, as such, does not play in the same league as the conversational assistants of the Chinese DeepSeek or the American OpenAI (ChatGPT).

The latter provide answers to queries via a chat interface, while Manus is designed to be able to perform tasks autonomously "from end to end": sorting CVs, booking travel...

AFP contacted Manus and Meta for comment on the Chinese decision announced on Monday.

The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs had cited Manus as another example of Chinese innovation, following the surprise breakthrough in early 2025 of the R1 reasoning model from the company DeepSeek.