Z.AI Raises $5 Billion as China's State Media Rebukes AI Slowdown Talk

Manus is in advanced discussions for a $500 million funding round at a $4 billion valuation, according to Bloomberg, following Beijing's NDRC blocking of Meta's $2 billion acquisition of the firm in April 2026. Co-founders Xiao Hong and Ji Yichao were summoned and barred from leaving China, forcing the company to pivot from a potential US acquisition target into a cornerstone of the domestic Chinese AI ecosystem, though the round is not yet closed and terms remain subject to change. In Seoul, Enhans, which raised a $38 million Series C confirmed in a September 17, 2026 press release, is embedding its AgentOS into Korean manufacturing and finance, with the round co-led by TIMEFOLIO Asset Management and Stonebridge Ventures and strategic participation from POSCO Investment, LG CNS, and Lotte Ventures, whose chaebol groups already run the technology in live production. Huawei, meanwhile, launched its AI Cluster Service and agent-specific tools including Agentic MaaS and the AgentArts platform at HUAWEI CONNECT 2026, with Dr. Peter Zhou emphasizing that infrastructure must evolve to support secure, reliable agent workloads in production; the Agentic Infra paradigm already serves over 3,500 customers, and while AICS is available in China starting September 30, global availability is not slated until November 30. Together these moves signal that the agent market is splitting along regional lines of data structuring, compute hosting, and regulatory oversight, leaving open whether these silos will converge through open standards or harden into permanent, incompatible zones.