Okay, so the U.S. and China are locked in an all-out race to build the most powerful AI on the planet. Beijing is throwing billions at homegrown models, tightening its grip on the tech sector, and watching nervously as its best AI talent gravitates to U.S. companies. A Carnegie Endowment study published late last year found that 87 of the 100 top Chinese AI researchers at U.S. institutions in 2019 are still there.
Yet Manus — one of China’s most buzzed-about AI startups — quietly relocated to Singapore and sold itself to Meta for $2 billion. Did anyone think there would not be a reckoning over this tie-up?
