Manus isn't another chatbot. It's an AI-agent platform.
The U.S. treats NVIDIA chips like national-security assets, now China is treating advanced AI-agent companies similarly.
Breaking news: China has blocked Meta’s $2bn acquisition of artificial intelligence platform Manus, after regulators reviewed whether the deal violated Beijing’s investment rules. https://t.co/hsuAdD1HUB
This could be China's first step in the long road to AI dominance. A step that China may never have taken if it had free and open access to NVIDIA's chips.
America just made a historic fumble.
It had the opportunity to make China completely dependent on its AI chips.
Instead, it forced China's AI industry to carve out its own path.
On Friday, China's DeepSeek unveiled a new open source model, the V4, that was trained using Huawei chips. Apparently, its performance closely tracks that of Google's closed-source Gemini 3.1 Pro.
What if Pakistan pledges to protect Iran against any nuclear threat from Israel by taking it under its own nuclear umbrella?
Maybe that will be sufficient to get Iran to agree to permanently give up nuclear enrichment.
@AJENews Iran-linked is not the same as transiting to or from an Iranian port. @CENTCOM's announcement specifically states the blockade is being enforced only against vessels "entering or departing an Iranian port".
@JoumannaTV A bit suspicious that rumours of a second round of negotiations were timed to go public just when President Trump's blockade against Iran went into effect. Very much possible they are designed to prevent oil markets from panicking.
It is best to be skeptical of rumours about a second round of talks between the U.S. and Iran.
I wouldn't trust the word of any journalist or "highly placed source".
The rumours of talks were timed to go public just when President Trump's blockade of the Strait of Hormuz went into effect.
This is likely a measure to prevent oil markets from panicking and keep oil prices low.
@joekent16jan19@Narjes_Rahmati Iran also cannot practically enrich uranium given that the U.S. destroyed the nuclear sites where it could do so. The entire push for zero enrichment is to force it to agree to something deeply humiliating and violative of its sovereignty.
Markets ARE expecting a peace deal right now. Iran is considering giving up nuclear enrichment in exchange for sanctions relief. They weren't able to communicate with their leadership back home whilst in Islamabad due to security reasons. That's why chances are they might agree to a deal now.
Neither did the U.S. restrain its ally Israel from violating the terms of the ceasefire, which included a full ceasefire in Lebanon as well, nor did it release frozen Iranian assets.
The ceasefire also has not prevented the U.S. from blockading the Strait of Hormuz or airlifting manpower and equipment to the Middle East, positioning it for an even greater escalation against Iran, possible to attempt a takeover of the Strait completely.
There is only one party that has abided by the terms of every agreement, ceasefire, and deal so far and that's Iran.
If you look closely, there's no reason for oil markets to react to President Trump's blockade. What's the practical effect? The few tankers leaving Iranian ports for China and India will no longer be able to do so. All other commercial traffic was already blocked. So nothing much has changed.