分类： technology

China has formally blocked Meta’s proposed $2 billion acquisition of Manus, a high-profile Chinese general-purpose agentic AI startup, and moved to clear up misperceptions around the decision, emphasizing that the prohibition targets regulatory circumvasion rather than domestic firms’ legitimate overseas expansion or foreign inbound investment.

The ban was issued on Monday by the Office of the Working Mechanism for Security Review of Foreign Investment under the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), which ordered the involved parties to unwind the unreported transaction entirely. In the days following the ruling, Chinese state media outlets published a series of explanatory commentaries to outline the policy logic behind the decision, aiming to avoid misinterpretation that the move signals a broader crackdown on foreign capital or restrictions on Chinese tech firms going global.

Chinese policy analysts stress that Beijing does not intend for the Manus ruling to send a misleading signal to the global investment community. As a CCTV-affiliated social media account Yuyuan Tantian clarified in a Thursday article, China’s existing Measures for the Security Review of Foreign Investment draw clear boundaries for regulatory scrutiny. Under the framework, all investments touching on national defense security require mandatory declaration regardless of foreign stake size, while for key sectors including core information technology, internet products and services, and critical technologies, any transaction that grants actual control to a foreign investor falls within mandatory review scope.

Manus, the article noted, fits clearly into this defined key technology category as a developer of general-purpose AI agent systems. Meta’s proposed acquisition would have transferred full actual control of the startup to the US tech giant, yet neither party submitted the required proactive declaration to Chinese regulators, making the ruling a straightforward application of existing law.

The article added that Chinese regulators assess risk across three core dimensions: technology, talent and data. All of Manus’s core assets — including its foundational algorithms, training data and core R&D team — were developed by domestic teams within China’s borders, so any transfer of control overseas legally requires a national security review. The commentary also pointed to growing global trends of expanding security review scopes and blurred threat definitions that specifically target other countries’ AI development, a practice that China must guard against to protect its own strategic technology ecosystem. Even as it enforces security rules, China remains committed to supporting AI innovation and maintaining an open market for foreign investment, the article emphasized.

The Manus transaction grew out of a new regulatory workaround that has emerged since the United States barred American investment from China’s domestic AI sector in October 2024, dubbed “Singapore washing.” The term describes the practice of Chinese AI firms spinning off operations or relocating their registered headquarters to Singapore to avoid US investment restrictions and raise foreign capital. In the case of Manus, the startup restructured its operations to sever formal ties with its Chinese origins to secure Meta’s investment, a strategy that the ruling has now invalidated.

Manus first captured global tech industry attention when it made its high-profile debut in March 2025. Unlike conventional large language models such as ChatGPT or DeepSeek, Manus is positioned as a general-purpose AI agent capable of completing complex, multi-step tasks traditionally handled by white-collar workers. In promotional demonstrations, co-founder Xiao Hong showcased the system’s capacity to sort through 10 candidate resumes, identify a New York City property matching a set budget, and analyze stock correlation trends between Nvidia, Marvell Technology and TSMC, leading the startup to adopt the slogan “Leave it to Manus.”

The acquisition deal began taking shape in 2025, as Manus restructured to move its registered headquarters to Singapore between June and July that year. It reorganized under a new Singapore-based operating entity, Butterfly Effect Pte, reduced its mainland Chinese team from more than 120 employees to just 40 core members who were relocated to Singapore, deleted all Chinese-language social media accounts, and blocked IP addresses based in China from accessing its official website. By the end of 2025, Manus presented itself as a fully Singapore-based company, and Meta announced the $2 billion acquisition on December 30, with Xiao Hong slated to take a senior leadership role at the US firm.

Chinese regulators launched their formal review of the unreported transaction in January 2026, and by late March, Xiao Hong and co-founder Ji Yichao were barred from leaving China as the review progressed. The formal ban on the deal was issued on April 27.

According to Chinese analysts, Manus crossed three non-negotiable red lines in its restructuring and dealmaking: technology sovereignty, data sovereignty and national security. “Where the technology originates determines jurisdiction,” explained Guangdong-based business columnist Shengchandui. Manus’s core algorithms and core team were built entirely within China, so shifting the company offshore and selling it to a foreign buyer amounts to unauthorized export of domestically developed strategic capabilities, a form of “technology smuggling” that weakens China’s domestic innovation base. The columnist added that Manus processes vast volumes of user data, much of it originating from Chinese users, so transferring control overseas creates unacceptable risks of data leakage, particularly under existing rules governing cross-border data transfers. As AI agents are emerging as core infrastructure for digital work, communication and software development, putting a system built on Chinese technology and data under full foreign control creates unacceptable national security risks, he noted.

Zhu Youping, a researcher at the NDRC’s State Information Center, clarified that the ruling is not a restriction on legitimate global expansion by Chinese firms, but a prohibition on efforts to evade national regulation. “If the proposed acquisition is completed, Meta would obtain 100% control in Manus, but neither Meta nor Manus had declared this to the Chinese regulators,” he said. Regulators apply a “look-through” approach that focuses on the actual origin of technology, the source of training data and ownership of core talent, rather than just the jurisdiction where a company is registered. “Manus’s relocation to Singapore is essentially a case of using domestic resources to incubate value and monetizing it through an offshore structure to bypass oversight,” Zhu added.

Beyond blocking the unauthorized transaction, Chinese authorities have signaled that they want Manus to remain rooted in China to contribute to the country’s fast-growing domestic AI industry. In a Tuesday editorial, the Global Times noted that “China’s AI industry has entered a phase of rapid development, with a sustained burst of innovative vitality, making it a fertile ground for global AI innovation. We hope that more technology and innovation enterprises, including Manus, can find their place in this blue ocean in China, develop confidently, grow larger and stronger and achieve better development and breakthroughs.”

The Manus ruling aligns with Beijing’s latest policy push to scale up domestic AI adoption for economic growth. On April 21, China’s State Council released a policy document outlining 20 measures to expand and upgrade the country’s AI sector, setting a target of growing total industry output to more than 100 trillion yuan (approximately $13.8 trillion) by 2030, up from 81 trillion yuan in 2025. The policy specifically supports deployment of AI tools in high-impact areas including intelligent programming, contract review, financial services and supply chain optimization, and calls for the construction of national AI application testing bases.

Pang Chaoran, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation (CAITEC), said the new policy marks a clear shift in China’s AI strategy: instead of focusing primarily on subsidizing AI model training, Beijing is now encouraging private service sector firms to adopt AI models and agents at scale. By driving widespread adoption of AI tools across industries, the government aims to accelerate commercialization of AI innovation, embed the technology deeper into real economic activity, and generate new growth momentum for both the service and technology sectors.

JAKARTA, Indonesia – In a move that marks one of the strictest youth safety policies the global gaming platform has ever enacted, Roblox confirmed Thursday it will require mandatory facial scanning for all Indonesian users under the age of 16 to verify their age, a change implemented to comply with Indonesia’s sweeping new regulatory framework governing minor access to social media and digital services.

Roblox Vice President and Global Head of Public Policy Nicky Jackson Colaco unveiled the new requirements during a Jakarta press conference, noting that the tailored rules for the Indonesian market outpace most other age-verification policies the platform has rolled out across its global operations. To align with national regulations, the company has restructured its Indonesian user accounts into two age-specific tiers: Roblox Kids, designed for children aged 5 to 12, which removes all in-platform chat functionality entirely; and Roblox Select, for teens aged 13 to 15, which restricts chat interactions exclusively to connections pre-approved by parents or family members.

The rollout will automatically reclassify the platform’s 23 million existing Indonesian accounts that were self-identified as belonging to users under 16, requiring all of these accounts to complete facial scanning-based age verification to retain their current access settings. Any under-16 user that fails to complete the facial scan process will be automatically downgraded to a restricted Roblox Kids account, with all chat functionality permanently disabled until verification is completed.

The age verification process requires users to capture a short video selfie to generate an estimated age assessment. Jackson Colaco emphasized that all biometric data collected during the process is deleted immediately after verification is complete, with no user data stored on Roblox servers long-term. According to Indonesian Communication and Digital Affairs Minister Meutya Hafid, Roblox has a total user base of roughly 45 million people in Indonesia, with just over half – around 23 million users – falling under the 16-year age threshold.

Notably, Roblox is the only gaming platform classified as a “high-risk” service by the Indonesian government, requiring it to implement more stringent youth access restrictions than most other major social media platforms operating in the country. Beyond account classification and restricted interaction limits, Roblox will also sort its game library by age appropriateness and enforce mandatory screen time limits to address widespread public concerns over youth gaming addiction. Parents will also be able to set custom daily usage caps aligned with their household rules, Hafid added.

Indonesia’s new national regulation on minor digital access took effect in late March, banning all users under 16 from accessing high-risk digital platforms that may expose young people to harms including gaming addiction, explicit content, online fraud, and cyberbullying. Out of eight major high-risk platforms operating in the country – which include YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, and Bigo Live – seven have already committed to rolling out compliant age-based access restrictions. Alongside access limits, Indonesian regulators are pushing all digital platforms to publish regular disclosures of how many under-16 accounts have been restricted or suspended as part of the new policy’s implementation.

Starting this Friday, May 1, sweeping new drone regulations will go into effect across Beijing, introducing some of the strictest controls on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in the world, even as China positions the broader low-altitude economy as a key national strategic growth sector.

Under the newly implemented rules, the sale, rental, and unauthorised transport of drones and their core components into Beijing will be fully prohibited. All private and commercial drone owners operating within the capital are required to register their devices with local law enforcement before taking any outdoor flight. Additional requirements mandate that all outdoor drone operations across Beijing secure prior official approval, and operators must complete a government-designed online training course and pass an assessment on UAV regulatory policies to qualify for flight permits.

Cross-city movement of drones also faces new scrutiny: any drone brought into or out of Beijing must go through formal registration, and owners sending drones outside the capital for repair are required to collect the device in person after servicing, rather than accepting courier delivery. A narrow set of exceptions applies to officially approved public utility operations, including counter-terrorism missions and disaster relief response, where drone ownership and operation remain permitted following government authorisation.

This latest round of restrictions builds on years of incremental tightening of UAV rules across China, a trend driven by consistent official concerns over public safety and low-altitude airspace security. Beijing first designated its entire airspace a controlled no-drone zone last year, requiring advance air traffic management approval for all drone flights, and the local People’s Congress approved the updated regulatory framework in March 2026.

“Our goal is to strike the best balance between safeguarding public and airspace safety and supporting sustainable technological and economic progress,” explained Xiong Jinghua, a senior official with the Beijing Municipal People’s Congress, when the regulations were approved.

The new policy comes at a paradoxical moment for China’s drone sector: Chinese manufacturers, led by global industry leader DJI, currently dominate the worldwide consumer and commercial drone market, and the country’s growing low-altitude economy – which encompasses both commercial drones and emerging flying taxi technology – has been marked as a national strategic priority, with official projections valuing the sector at more than 2 trillion yuan ($290 billion) by 2035. Across many urban and rural regions of China, drones have already entered widespread daily use, supporting applications from commercial food delivery and agricultural crop monitoring to high-rise building exterior cleaning.

Even with this rapid growth, China has emerged as one of the most tightly regulated markets for drone operation globally. With the new rules set to take effect, reports from Beijing indicate that authorized retail outlets for DJI, the country’s largest drone manufacturer, have already begun removing all consumer drones and related components from store shelves ahead of the sales ban.

Official data puts the total number of registered drones across China at more than 3 million, and industry analysts note that the sweeping new restrictions in the capital are expected to reshape the country’s massive domestic drone market, forcing operators and manufacturers to adapt to the new layered regulatory regime.

Over the past five years, India’s rapid embrace of cashless digital payments has unlocked unprecedented convenience for millions of consumers — but it has also opened the door to a soaring wave of cyber-enabled financial fraud that has drained billions of dollars from ordinary accounts. The scale of the crisis became stark in new data showing nearly 2.5 million Indian citizens lost a combined $25 billion to digital scams in 2025 alone, marking a staggering 4,300% increase in total losses since 2021. This explosive growth has forced India’s central banking regulator, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), to intervene with a slate of proposed policy changes aimed at curbing the harm, though industry experts warn the new measures face major implementation hurdles and may deliver only limited impact. The human cost of the crisis is illustrated by the experience of Alok, a business analyst based in Pune whose identity has been protected by changing his name. In February, he received an urgent text message claiming he owed a 1,000 rupee ($10.75) speeding fine, warning that his driving license would be suspended if he did not pay immediately. Pressured to act quickly, Alok clicked a linked payment portal and entered a one-time password (OTP) to complete what he thought was the small transaction. Within minutes, his credit card had been charged the full maximum limit of $3,225. Alok had fallen victim to one of India’s most common social engineering scams, where fraudsters use psychological manipulation — stoking fear and urgency — to trick users into revealing sensitive authentication details that allow scammers to drain their accounts. These fake messages mimic official government or bank communications, directing unsuspecting victims to convincing phishing websites that harvest their credentials. As digital payment adoption has accelerated far faster than public digital literacy and regulatory safeguards, this type of fraud has evolved into a national crisis. In response, the RBI released a public discussion paper earlier this month outlining a series of potential reforms to crack down on illegal activity. The most notable proposals include mandating a one-hour processing delay for account-to-account money transfers, requiring additional authentication from a pre-approved trusted person for high-value payments made by vulnerable groups such as senior citizens, imposing stricter limits and ongoing reviews for large credits to new customer accounts to flag potential money mule accounts used to launder fraudulent funds, and giving consumers the ability to toggle digital payment services on or off and set custom transaction limits, similar to the controls already available for physical credit and debit cards. While experts broadly praise the RBI’s proactive, consultative approach to addressing the crisis, many question the effectiveness and practicality of the proposed policies. Rajesh Bansal, former CEO of the RBI Innovation Hub, told the BBC that while a payment processing delay could block the type of OTP scam that targeted Alok, these simpler scams now make up only a tiny fraction of total fraudulent activity in India. “These scams were the dominant variety three or four years ago, but frauds have now moved to another level, and are far more sophisticated,” Bansal explained. Wriju Ray, a senior leader at leading regulatory technology firm IDfy, notes that implementing a system-wide payment delay would also be logistically extremely challenging. India’s digital payment ecosystem is built around the core principle of instant transaction processing, so adding delays would require a complete overhaul of existing network architecture, from transaction queuing systems to transaction cancellation protocols. The RBI itself acknowledges this challenge, admitting in the discussion paper that the change would require significant cost and effort across the entire industry, and would contradict the core design of India’s real-time payment infrastructure. Bansal compares the change to “building an expressway and adding speed breakers every few kilometres” — creating unnecessary friction for legitimate users that will do little to stop determined scammers. Ray adds that fraudsters are already likely to adapt to the change, for example by instructing victims to complete transactions an hour in advance to avoid triggering any fraud alerts. Other proposals also raise practical questions, experts say. While extra authentication for elderly users is a well-intentioned idea, it is unclear how the rule would work in practice: what if the trusted person is traveling abroad? And if the trusted person approves a transaction that still turns out to be fraudulent, who bears legal responsibility for the loss? The plan to strengthen detection of money mule accounts through stricter checks and credit limits may be effective, but it would also impose heavy new compliance costs on financial institutions — costs that would ultimately be passed on to ordinary consumers, Ray argues. Bansal adds that the RBI already has a fully developed mule detection platform called Mulehunter.AI, which was created during his tenure as CEO and is designed to provide real-time intelligence on high-risk beneficiary accounts. The platform has yet to be rolled out for widespread real-time use across India’s banking system, and Bansal is calling for its immediate, expedited implementation as a more effective immediate solution. Beyond regulatory changes, experts agree that policy intervention is only one piece of the puzzle. Closing the gap between rapid digital adoption and public digital literacy is a critical, long-overdue priority. India’s population has moved to digital payments at a breakneck pace that outstripped the growth of consumer education and fraud awareness safeguards. While the RBI has launched public awareness campaigns, recruiting high-profile celebrities such as Amitabh Bachchan and running ads during widely viewed Indian Premier League cricket matches, experts say far more investment is needed to bring digital literacy to all segments of the population, particularly vulnerable groups like the elderly that are most often targeted by scammers. Experts also add that the RBI needs to deepen cross-agency collaboration with police forces, relevant government ministries, the securities and markets regulator, and other stakeholders to tackle the root of the fraud crisis, as fragmented responsibility across agencies has slowed effective action to date. Despite the concerns about the specific proposals, experts do welcome the RBI’s new open, consultative approach to addressing the problem — a marked shift from the bank’s past practice of issuing top-down decrees without public input. Ray notes that the ongoing public discussion of the crisis is itself a positive step that will ultimately lead to more effective, widely accepted regulation over time.