SINGAPORE: Manus, a Singapore-based artificial intelligence (AI) developer, has been bought by tech giant Meta, which owns, among others, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
The move is widely understood to expand Meta’s AI capabilities.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Meta is paying more than US $2 billion (S$2.56 billion) for Manus. This amount is what Manus reportedly sought for its next funding round.
The acquisition was announced by Meta on Monday (Dec 29), with the tech giant saying that Manus was joining Meta “to bring a leading agent to billions of people and unlock opportunities for businesses across our products.”
While headquartered in Singapore, some media outlets, including Reuters and the BBC, have reported Manus as a Chinese-founded startup.
“Manus is already serving the daily needs of millions of users and businesses worldwide. It launched its first General AI Agent earlier this year and has already served more than 147T tokens and created more than 80M virtual computers. We plan to scale this service to many more businesses,” Meta said in its announcement.
The tech giant also touted Manus’s “exceptional” talent, adding that it is excited to “help improve the lives of billions of people and millions of businesses with their technology.”
Manus, which was launched only in early March. At the time, Newsweek described it as the first fully autonomous AI agent in the world, adding that it had been developed by “a low-profile team and backed by Chinese investors and developers.”
Its developers have described it as “a general AI agent that bridges minds and actions: it doesn’t just think, it delivers results.”
The key person behind Manus is Xiao Hong, the company’s founder and CEO. Mr Hong was born in 1992 in China and came of age during the country’s digital revolution. He graduated from Huazhong University of Science and Technology with a degree in Software Engineering. He has been deemed a rising star in the AI world.
Interestingly, aside from founding Nightingale Technology, which is responsible for the AI-driven platforms Yi Ban Assistant and Wei Ban Assistant, Mr Hong developed a WeChat editing plugin, which helped propel the messenger app to prominence in China.
Manus has called its acquisition by Meta a validation of its pioneering work with general AI agents.
Mr Hong said, “Joining Meta allows us to build on a stronger, more sustainable foundation without changing how Manus works or how decisions are made. We’re excited about what the future holds with Meta and Manus working together, and we will continue to iterate the product and serve users that have defined Manus from the beginning.” /TISG
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