Excitement is mingling with skepticism as Chinese tech companies that hope to be seen as “the next DeepSeek” roll out one artificial intelligence breakthrough after another.
In one of the most recent examples, early access codes for Manus AI are reportedly changing hands for thousands of dollars amid a frenzy of online interest in the app.
The company, also called Manus AI, released a demo video on March 5 claiming the world’s “first general AI agent” can do everything from screening resumes to researching real estate and analyzing stocks.
“This isn’t just another chatbot or workflow. It’s a truly autonomous agent that bridges the gap between conception and execution. While other AI stops at generating ideas, Manus delivers results,” Ji Yichao, co-founder and chief scientist of Manus AI, said in the video.
“We see it as the next paradigm of human-machine collaboration, and potentially a glimpse into AGI,” Ji added, referring to the yet-unrealized concept of artificial general intelligence (AGI) in which AI achieves human-level cognitive abilities.
The company also claims Manus surpassed ChatGPT developer OpenAI’s models across all three difficulty levels in the GAIA benchmark, which assesses general AI assistants on their real-world problem-solving capabilities.
“This wouldn’t be possible without the amazing open-source community. … Manus operates as a multi-agent system powered by several distinct models, so later this year, we’re going to open-source some of these models, specifically post-trained for Manus, inviting everyone to explore this agentic future together,” Ji said.
The app is not yet publicly available as it requires an invitation code to use, but it quickly took the Chinese internet by storm after a number of tech influencers who were given early access shared their impressions of the agent. The official website crashed due to a surge in traffic, and invitation codes became so scarce that some were reportedly being resold online for as much as RMB 50,000 (USD 7,000).
After the launch, many Chinese media outlets began referring to Manus AI as “the next DeepSeek.”
Compared with the frenzy in China, the overseas reception to the app has been lukewarm, even though both its website and the demo video are in fluent English. Its video on YouTube has generated around 28,000 views as of Friday morning, while its X account is tentatively suspended over “rule violation.”
However, the sudden popularity of the app has also triggered skepticism as only a handful of users have experienced it firsthand. Some critics argue that the so-called DeepSeek moment for AI applications is just little more than a “marketing frenzy” based on hype surrounding open-source models.
“The core technology of Manus is its ability to automatically deploy different tools and models, something other companies haven’t achieved,” said an AI engineer not related to the company and who asked not to be named. “Manus claims its accuracy is very high, while the industry standard for accuracy is actually quite low.”
The engineer expressed skepticism, however, about the uniqueness of Manus’ achievement and compared it to foreign competitors like Anthropic’s Claude Computer Use. He also pointed to the fevered atmosphere around the country’s AI industry.
“It feels like the AI industry right now is all about China’s rise, so whenever something AI-related comes up, people immediately start hyping it up. I’m worried this might disrupt normal development, though of course, appropriate encouragement is also important.”
Under mounting public pressure, Manus AI partner Zhang Tao said on March 6 that the company “has never allocated any budget for marketing” and that the invite-only system was implemented purely due to “server capacity limitations.”
Manus AI is not the only company looking to follow in the footsteps of startup DeepSeek, which took the tech world by storm in late January when it unveiled low-cost inference models based on open-source technology.
On March 6, Alibaba Group released its own open-source AI reasoning model, dubbed QwQ-32B, saying it outperforms DeepSeek’s R1 in areas such as mathematics, coding, and general problem-solving, despite its relatively modest 32 billion parameters. A larger number of parameters generally means a more capable technology, but it also requires more computing power. In comparison, DeepSeek’s R1 boasts 671 billion parameters.
Whether claims like these turn out to be hype or reality, Beijing is throwing its weight behind the sector, too, in an apparent hope that advances in AI and other technologies can boost the economy amid curbs from the West. On March 5, Chinese premier Li Qiang vowed in his annual government work report that authorities will continue to support research and development in core technology for key fields and increase funding for fostering futuristic technologies such as embodied AI this year.
Investors, seizing on Beijing’s promises of policy support and announcements by companies like Manus and Alibaba, have piled into AI-related shares, pushing the Hang Seng Tech Index to its highest level since late 2021 on March 7.
This article first appeared on Nikkei Asia. It has been republished here as part of 36Kr’s ongoing partnership with Nikkei.
