JAKARTA China’s artificial intelligence (AI) startup, Manus, on Thursday, March 20 registered its domestic version of the AI assistant and for the first time appeared in state media broadcasts. The move shows Beijing’s strategy in supporting local AI companies that have received recognition abroad.
Since DeepSek surprised Silicon Valley by releasing an AI model that is equivalent to its US competitors, but developed at lower costs, Chinese investors have begun to look for the next domestic startup that has the potential to change the global order of technology.
Manus became one of the candidates who attracted attention. A few weeks ago, the company went viral on platform X after releasing what was claimed to be the world’s first common AI agent. This technology is able to make decisions and carry out tasks independently with fewer orders than AI chatbots such as ChatGPT and DeepSeek.
The Beijing government is now showing signs of support for the launch of Manus in the country, similar to a response to DeepSeek’s success. CCTV state television station on Thursday broadcast special coverage of the discrepancy between AI Manus agent and DeepSeek AI chatbot.
On the same day, the Beijing city government announced that China’s version of Manus’ previous assistant AI product, called Monica, had completed an mandatory registration process for a generating AI application in China. This is an important step in complying with the country’s strict AI-related regulations.
Chinese regulators require all generative AI applications released domestically to comply with strict rules, some of which are designed to prevent this technology from producing content deemed sensitive or harmful to Beijing.
Last week, Manus announced a strategic partnership with the team behind the AI Qwen model belonging to technology giant Alibaba.
This step can accelerate the launch of the domestic AI Manus agent. Currently, the product is only available to users with an invitation code and has a waiting list of as many as 2 million people, according to the startup’s statement.
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