The order, one of Beijing’s strongest moves yet against a foreign purchase of a Chinese tech company, came on Monday from China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), which said foreign investment in Manus would be prohibited under Chinese law, and the deal must be unwound.

Beijing is now concentrating on AI talent, software and intellectual property, and areas once taken over by chip restrictions now include artificial intelligence, as competition between China and the United States gets stronger

Chinese authorities began examining the acquisition in January, shortly after Meta completed the purchase in December. The review later intensified, and in March, Manus co-founders Xiao Hong and Ji Yichao were reportedly called to Beijing for talks with regulators and then barred from leaving China.

Neither founder publicly responded to requests for comment.

Meta has also not issued a public response.

Manus had drawn attention in China after launching what it described as a general AI agent in 2025. State-backed media had commended the company as a possible successor to DeepSeek, one of China’s most-watched AI firms.

Unlike model developers who build large language systems from scratch, Manus focused on agent software designed to complete multi-step tasks with limited human input. These tasks include coding, research and workflow automation.

Before the takeover, Manus raised $75 million in funding led by Benchmark in May 2025.

The company later shut its China offices and moved operations to Singapore, where its parent company, Butterfly Effect, was restructured. That move was seen as an attempt to attract foreign capital while easing both U.S. and Chinese restrictions.

Chinese regulators now appear determined to challenge that route.

The practice, sometimes called “Singapore washing”, involves Chinese-founded startups shifting legal structures or operations abroad while keeping roots in China. The latest development with Beijing reveals that strategy may no longer guarantee protection from investigations.

Startups moving overseas may not be enough as authorities may now demand proof of where management is headquartered, where research is done, where data is stored and who controls the company’s technology.

The China ruling could also create some problems for Meta, as some Manus staff had already moved into Meta’s Singapore offices, while parts of the startup’s work were reportedly being integrated into Meta projects.

Any reversal may now require separating teams, contracts and technology already tied together.

This is coming weeks before a planned summit in Beijing between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping in mid-May.

That meeting was expected to cover trade and technology tensions, but this issue now adds another case.

China has previously criticised foreign-linked deals involving strategic assets, but forcing the breakup of a completed transaction is rare.

China does not want core AI assets leaving its reach, no matter where a company later relocates.

The new systems are already being adopted by hyperscale customers including Microsoft Azure and Alibaba Cloud.

The launch will enhance data centre connections and scale. With the growth of AI training models that span multiple regions, Cisco’s P200 and 8223 systems aim to efficiently link data centres located thousands of miles apart, acting as a unified, high-performance computing network.

Martin Lund, executive vice president of Cisco’s Common Hardware Group, explained the scale of change the company is addressing: “AI compute is outgrowing the capacity of even the largest data centre, driving the need for reliable, secure connection of data centres hundreds of miles apart. With the Cisco 8223, powered by the new Cisco Silicon One P200, we’re delivering the massive bandwidth, scale and security needed for distributed data centre architectures.”

The P200 chip, a deep-buffer routing silicon, replaces 92 separate chips with one. It delivers more than 65% energy savings compared to traditional routers, an important development as hyperscalers face power challenges. 

The chip also supports interconnect bandwidth of over 3 exabits per second, allowing AI workloads to run across multiple facilities without performance loss.

The 8223 routing system is built to complement this. It can process more than 20 billion packets per second, supporting 64 ports of 800G, the highest density of any fixed router available. Its deep buffering feature absorbs data surges generated during AI training, keeping systems stable and responsive.

The system’s design prioritises power efficiency and flexibility. It is the most power-efficient 3RU router in its category, offering switch-like energy performance while managing the intense traffic of AI-driven networks. The 8223 can adapt to changing network protocols through programmability, reducing the need for hardware upgrades and keeping operations agile.

Security is another focal point, as the 8223 integrates line-rate encryption and post-quantum resilient algorithms, backed by continuous monitoring features that provide visibility into performance and threats. This ensures that sensitive AI traffic remains protected as data moves between facilities.

Dave Maltz, corporate vice president of Azure Networking at Microsoft, said: “The increasing scale of the cloud and AI requires faster networks with more buffering to absorb bursts. We’re pleased to see the P200 providing innovation and more options in this space.”

Alibaba Cloud is also deploying the technology to enhance its eCore architecture. “We are pleased to see the launch of Cisco Silicon One P200, the industry’s first 51.2T routing ASIC that delivers high bandwidth, lower power consumption, and full P4 programmability. This breakthrough chip aligns perfectly with the evolution of Alibaba’s eCore architecture,” said Dennis Cai, vice president and head of Network Infrastructure at Alibaba Cloud.

The 8223 is initially being released for open-source SONiC deployments, with IOS XR support to follow. Cisco also confirmed that the P200 silicon will be available for modular and disaggregated platforms, allowing consistent integration across different network sizes.

With AI workloads increasing across industries, Cisco’s latest launch will boost its competitive edge with companies like Broadcom in the networking chip market. More importantly, it stresses how infrastructure innovation, not just software, will determine how effectively global AI systems evolve.

Patrick Moorhead, CEO and chief analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, said, “As AI workloads rapidly outpace the capabilities of traditional data centres, the industry faces new challenges in bandwidth, reliability, and scale. Cisco’s 8223, powered by Silicon One P200, marks a significant step forward, delivering the industry’s first 51.2-terabit fixed Ethernet router purpose-built for secure, power-efficient scale-across networking.”

Lodged in the Competition Appeal Tribunal, the lawsuit accuses the tech giant of overcharging businesses for Windows Server licenses when they were using rival cloud platforms like Amazon AWS, Google Cloud, and Alibaba Cloud. 

The suit alleges that customers using these competitors were forced to pay higher fees for Microsoft’s software than those using Microsoft’s own Azure cloud services.

This lawsuit adds to the issues surrounding the cloud computing market, particularly the pricing of tech giants like Microsoft. Recent developments have seen the U.S. Federal Trade Commission launch an antitrust investigation into Microsoft’s software and cloud computing divisions. 

Similarly, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has been investigating the cloud services market, with a particular focus on Amazon and Microsoft. 

The CMA’s investigation, which follows a referral from the communications regulator Ofcom, is still ongoing, with no final report expected until next year.

In Europe, Microsoft has already had some settlements over similar accusations. In July 2023, the company reached a €20 million settlement with the cloud services trade association CISPE, resolving an antitrust complaint filed by the EU. 

This settlement, though smaller in comparison to the £1 billion sought in the UK lawsuit, has likely led to further litigation, as financial settlements often attract the attention of legal funders.

The UK lawsuit is being funded by Litigation Capital Management (LCM), a global dispute finance provider, and is spearheaded by Dr Maria Luisa Stasi, an expert in competition law. 

Dr Stasi claims that Microsoft’s actions are designed to push UK businesses towards its Azure platform, stifling competition by penalising customers using other cloud services. 

According to her, the lawsuit will demand Microsoft disclose the extent of the overcharging and seek compensation for businesses that were allegedly harmed by these practices.

The legal proceedings are expected to include thousands of UK-based businesses that are automatically included in the suit unless they choose to opt-out. 

No upfront costs are required from these businesses, and they stand to gain compensation if the lawsuit succeeds. Microsoft has yet to respond to the allegations.

What is business resilience? McKinsey believes it’s the ability to emerge from a crisis better than before and with the ability to take advantage of opportunities that disruption has left behind.

Resilience is, says the firm, constantly adapting for growth. Forrester says it is a competitive advantage, one that allows the company to actively look for opportunities by reacting dynamically to sudden events or crises. 

Gartner emphasises how digital is a critical investment into driving resilience in 2023 along with ‘coupling radical efficiency with innovation’.

Then, of course, there is disaster recovery which is also a fundamental part of embedding resilience within the business. No, it’s not the whole picture, but it’s one of the most important colours. Imagine the Mona Lisa without any black paint. That’s resilience without disaster recovery – the idea is there, but it’s not delivering any value.

This is one of the reasons why backup, recovery, and digital have become synonymous with resilient business infrastructure, and why cloud disaster recovery is gaining traction.

Cloud makes it easier for companies to recover from a disaster while simultaneously boosting innovation and agility. Its ubiquity and security make it a trusted resource for backup and data management and the hyperscale environment is designed to make data protection more reliable and accessible.

A powerful cloud ecosystem includes backup and recovery tools that put data at the forefront of recovery while allowing for the business to enjoy relatively unlimited storage space and this is key – your business wants 99.999999999% uptime, particularly in a crisis.

It is also cloud that offers the elasticity your business infrastructure needs to move at the speed of disruption and ensure performance throughout an event. Wedded to security and stability along with low-cost scalability, the cloud brings the business backup that’s capable and that fits on the bottom line.

Traditional backup has a hefty price tag that the cloud can compete with very effectively – Alibaba Cloud uses proprietary deduplication technology and data lifecycle management optimisation that manages the movement of legacy data to low-cost cloud archives while reducing the volume of transmissions, storage, and excessive backups.

Of course, no business resilience solution would be worth its proverbial salt today without the benefit of artificial intelligence. The backbone of your cloud architecture should be comprised of next-generation technologies underpinned by intelligence.

Generative AI (GAI) within the cloud not only smooths over the costs and optimises systems but ensures that enterprises have access to additional tools and services that allow for innovation and growth.

Added together, all these elements provide the business with improved stability, faster recovery time, richer resiliency, and greater flexibility. Balanced on the edge of demand versus scale, the cloud brings the business a sophisticated ecosystem that can evolve and adapt, and that can now use GAI to take these capabilities even further.

A self-learning environment that can automate disaster recovery processes and refine resilience throughout the business without compromising on security and stability.

Alibaba Cloud with its next-generation GAI, 99.999999999% uptime, optimised data lifecycle management and robust disaster recovery provides your company with the flexibility and reliability it needs to recover at speed.

The Alibaba environment acts as an extension of your on-premises environment, minimises recovery time and all within a warm standby that minimises recovery time while keeping the lights on throughout.

Leveraging the unique Alibaba Cloud environment, you can transform your disaster recovery strategy while improving resilience and business capability.  

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Tuvalu, midway between Hawaii and Australia, plans to recreate itself piece by piece on the metaverse to build the planet’s first completely digital nation to preserve its history and legacy that is under threat by global warming.

The island is sinking as the seas rise and it is expected to be completely submerged in under 100 years.

The island wants to conserve itself in a “state that generations of Tuvaluans can look into it … that’s the digitised idea,” said Dr Eselealofa Apinelu, Tuvalu’s former attorney general and current high commissioner to Fiji.

They want to create a “digital twin” for the 12 000 who call the island, the fourth-smallest country by area in the world, home. “Piece by piece we’ll preserve our country, provide solace to our people, and remind our children and our grandchildren what our home once was,” Tuvalu’s foreign minister Simon Kofe told COP27 last year in an address he made while standing with his knees submerged in the rising seas.

“Without a global conscience and a global commitment to our shared wellbeing, we may soon find the rest of the world joining us online as their lands disappear.”

It is an extraordinary move and statement in an extraordinary time. The world’s first hybrid nation with a physical boundary and area with its memories, history, government services, cultural and identity records, and natural resources available in the Cloud for future generations of Tuvaluans.

Just as the Cloud will be a safe, instantly accessible place for Tuvaluans to embrace their hybrid status, so too are hybrid Cloud solutions gaining traction amongst enterprises as they seek to safeguard their past, present, and future.

A hybrid Cloud is a combination of all the good things from public and private clouds. With the public Cloud, there is sometimes a trade-off in terms of performance, while the private Cloud is a dedicated environment to a single enterprise.

A private Cloud can be operated by an in-house team, allowing the enterprise a firmer control of its assets and resources. It has a high level of security, perhaps the highest, but comes with cost issues and, if you live in South Africa, may also be vulnerable to the foibles of load-shedding if your company does not have a significant back-up power solution.

Marry the public and the private and you have a solution that will offer you the best levels of security, cost, and access. Flexibility. That’s the word you will hear over and over again when you enter into any discussion about hybrid Cloud solutions.

At BCX, we announced an exclusive South Africa go-to-market alliance with Alibaba Cloud in September last year.

This was to offer a service-centric cloud experience for Africa and to speak to the issues some enterprises faced in moving to the cloud. African enterprises are looking to minimise the disruptions of downtime and ensure they can maximise their success.

For many of them, the Alibaba hybrid Cloud will offer an ideal solution. It addresses some of the concerns enterprises have with hybrid solutions. It overcomes compatibility issues between public and private with an auto-scaling feature with 50 product portfolios and over 10 000 servers. Simple, secure, and intelligent security services take care of security issues. Cross-geography disaster and hot-upgrade recovery scenarios are taken to the next level to overcome reliability and scalability concerns that may affect stability and impact the user experience.

Seamless deployment scenarios allow you to expand services between on-site and Cloud resources. The Alibaba hybrid Cloud solution’s disaster recovery, backup, upgrades, and elastic scaling make it a highly capable and reliable architecture.

“Alibaba wants to do business together…we don’t just want to sell products, we want to use our exclusive partnership with BCX to create new business models for Africa. We want to help businesses to set up their private clouds, those who may not want to use public cloud or want to use multiple cloud models,” said Daniel Jiang, general manager of Alibaba Cloud, EMEA, last year.

The hybrid model is about recreating what you know and how you approach the Cloud. It’s about building a legacy.