Meta Shares Gain as It Will Buy Chinese Founded Startup Manus 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 the transaction 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.

Meta shares gained 1.5% in morning trading.

Manus went viral early this year on X after it released what it claimed was the world's first general AI agent, capable of making decisions and executing tasks autonomously, with much less prompting required than AI chatbots like ChatGPT and DeepSeek.

That drove commentators to call it China's next DeepSeek, and it was cheered by Chinese state television. The company months later moved its headquarters from China to Singapore, joining a wave of other Chinese companies that have done so to curb risks from U.S.-China tensions.

Manus, whose products are not available in China, claims its AI agent's performance surpasses that of OpenAI's DeepResearch. It 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.