China secretly supports AI chatbot Manus

Ever since China's DeepSeek shocked Silicon Valley by releasing AI models that rivaled their American counterparts but were developed at a much lower cost, Chinese investors have been on the lookout for the next homegrown AI startup with the potential to shake up the global tech order.

Manus has registered an AI assistant aimed at the Chinese market.

Some have pointed to Manus. The company made headlines on X a few weeks ago when it announced what it claims is the “world’s first general AI agent,” capable of making decisions and performing tasks autonomously, with much less guidance than AI chatbots like ChatGPT and DeepSeek.

Beijing is now showing signs of supporting the deployment of Manus in China, similar to how it responded to DeepSeek’s success. State broadcaster CCTV devoted airtime to Manus for the first time on Tuesday, posting a video about the differences between Manus’ AI agent and DeepSeek’s AI chatbot.

The Beijing city government also announced on Tuesday that the Chinese version of an earlier Manus product, an AI assistant named Monica, has completed mandatory registration for generative AI applications in China, clearing a key regulatory hurdle.

Chinese regulators require all generative AI applications released in the country to comply with strict regulations, in part to ensure that these products do not generate content deemed sensitive or harmful by Beijing.

Last week, Manus announced a strategic partnership with the team behind tech giant Alibaba’s Qwen AI models. The partnership with Qwen could help Manus deal with traffic spikes and expand its user base as Alibaba looks to gain an edge over competitors like DeepSeek.

The two parties will cooperate based on Qwen's open-source AI models and aim to integrate Manus' functions as an AI agent with AI models and computing platforms in China, Manus said on social media platform Weibo.

The move could boost the domestic rollout of Manus' AI agent, which is currently only available to users with an invite code and has a 2 million-person waiting list.

Unlike chatbots, AI agents can act as digital agents, performing tasks independently and with minimal prompting. At launch, Manus claimed its performance outperformed OpenAI’s AI agent, DeepResearch.

The launch quickly went viral on Chinese social media, as many drew comparisons to the creators of Hangzhou-based chatbot DeepSeek, who shocked Silicon Valley by introducing an AI chatbot that could rival OpenAI's best products at a fraction of the cost.

Source: https://www.baogiaothong.vn/trung-quoc-ngam-ngam-ho-tro-chatbot-ai-manus-192250321154610022.htm