SUBJECT: China kills Meta-Manus | SASC Golden Dome today | Mythos joint defense call

April 27, 2026 — AI Policy Daily

**China's foreign investment regulator ordered Meta to unwind** its $2 billion purchase of agentic AI startup Manus, citing alleged technology leakage and reversing the deal under Beijing's security review framework. **Cybersecurity executives with access to Anthropic's Mythos model urged joint government-business defense**, with Cisco's chief product officer telling the FT the rollout marks a "pre-Mythos" and "post-Mythos" world; the Senate Armed Services SOCOM-CYBERCOM posture hearing is set for Tuesday. **The Supreme Court hears arguments today on geofence warrants**, weighing Fourth Amendment limits on a Google "location history" feature that, when this case began in 2019, was logging the positions of roughly 500 million opted-in users every two minutes.

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1/ AI POLICY TODAY

• **Beijing orders Meta to unwind $2 billion Manus acquisition** — China's Working Mechanism Office for the Security Review of Foreign Investment, under the National Development and Reform Commission, barred Meta Platforms' $2 billion acquisition of agentic AI startup Manus and ordered the parties to unwind the transaction, TechNode reported. The acquisition target was Butterfly Effect, the Singapore-based parent of Manus. Bloomberg said the deal had drawn fire over alleged leakage of technology to the U.S. The regulator unwound the transaction in accordance with China's foreign investment security review framework, per TechNode. [Bloomberg](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-04-27/china-blocks-meta-s-2-billion-acquisition-of-ai-startup-manus) [TechNode](https://technode.com/2026/04/27/manus-related-foreign-investment-deal-ordered-unwound-in-china/)

• **Mythos-access cyber chiefs publicly call for joint government-business defense** — Cybersecurity executives at firms with access to Anthropic's Mythos model told the Financial Times the rollout will require close coordination between governments and businesses. Anthropic has released Mythos to about 40 mostly U.S.-based organizations, including Amazon, Microsoft and JPMorgan Chase, the FT reported. Central bankers, financial institutions and regulators have demanded expedited access in recent days, but Anthropic has declined to provide a timeline. The Senate Armed Services Committee holds its SOCOM and CYBERCOM posture hearing on Tuesday. Sources named in the FT include Cisco president and chief product officer Jeetu Patel, Fifth Third CFO Bryan Preston, and Palo Alto Networks EMEA chief security officer Haider Pasha. [FT](https://www.ft.com/content/e96bc361-d222-4190-80fe-e357fa86ef4d)

• **Supreme Court hears oral argument on Fourth Amendment limits to geofence warrants** — The Supreme Court hears arguments today in a case examining whether geofence warrants comply with the Fourth Amendment, NPR reported. The technique allows police to obtain a warrant requiring a tech firm to identify any device its database recorded inside a virtual perimeter at the time of a crime. The case turns on Google's "location history" feature, which logged users' positions roughly every two minutes; about 500 million Google users (one-third of the total) had opted into the service when the case began in 2019. Stanford law professor Orin Kerr told NPR the technique was "a little bit of an investigative lottery ticket" when investigators had no other leads. [NPR](https://www.npr.org/2026/04/27/nx-s1-5777656/supreme-court-geofence-warrants)

• **Trump administration moves to fast-track nuclear microreactors for AI data center demand** — The Department of Energy launched a microreactor test bed facility called DOME at Idaho National Laboratory, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced a forthcoming proposed rule to streamline microreactor licensing, Forbes reported. The actions are aimed at speeding microreactor development to meet electricity demand from AI data centers. The NRC and industry estimate the proposed rule could save $3.76–$11.84 billion and accelerate construction permit timelines by 6–12 months, per Forbes. Forbes identifies the program goal as supporting microreactor deployment for data center, military and remote-grid applications. [Forbes](https://www.forbes.com/sites/noelfletcher/2026/04/26/how-the-trump-administration-is-fast-tracking-nuclear-microreactors/)

• **Taiwanese court hands ex-Tokyo Electron staffer 10 years for TSMC data theft** — A Taiwanese court sentenced a former Tokyo Electron employee to 10 years in prison for stealing Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.'s proprietary data, Bloomberg reported. Bloomberg said the case highlights alarm over industrial espionage in Taiwan's strategic chip sector. The Financial Times separately reported Tokyo Electron cut ties with executive Jay Chen after links to Chinese chip startups surfaced. The defendant, ex-Tokyo Electron engineer Chen Li-ming, did not leak trade secrets outside Tokyo Electron and its Taiwan unit, per the court ruling cited by Bloomberg. The court also fined Tokyo Electron's Taiwan unit NT$150 million ($4.8 million). [Bloomberg](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-04-27/ex-tokyo-electron-staffer-handed-10-year-sentence-over-tsmc-leak) [FT](https://www.ft.com/content/dcc1b342-0d2a-4c1d-8e69-8d201dd2dec6)

• **Musk v. Altman OpenAI breach-of-contract trial begins today with jury selection in Oakland** — Jury selection in Elon Musk's lawsuit alleging Sam Altman broke OpenAI's founding agreement begins today in U.S. District Court in Oakland, Calif., before Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, CNBC reported. Musk's claims target OpenAI's nonprofit-to-public-benefit transition and Altman's stewardship of the original mission, the Guardian reported. Musk's xAI is a competitor to OpenAI's commercial AI offerings. Court filings name Musk, Altman, Brockman and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella among the witnesses, per CNBC. [Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/apr/26/musk-altman-openai-court) [CNBC](https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/24/musk-v-altman-trial-openai-lawsuit-xai.html)

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2/ CHINA WATCH

• **Intel warns Chinese cloud providers of severe server CPU shortage** — Intel has told major cloud customers in China that they will face severe server CPU shortages over the next two quarters as AI infrastructure demand surges and yields on its 18A process ramp slower than planned, TechNode reported. Delivery lead times for some models could stretch up to six months. Some buyers have already shifted to AMD or slowed their data center buildouts, the report said. Industry analysts cited by TechNode predict capacity bottlenecks could last into early 2027. [TechNode](https://technode.com/2026/04/27/intel-warns-china-of-severe-server-cpu-shortage-as-ai-demand-surges/)

• **Meituan tests trillion-parameter LongCat model on domestic compute** — Meituan opened invitation-only testing of a new large language model with over one trillion parameters, trained on domestically developed computing clusters, Pandaily reported. A capital partner of Meituan's described the model as broadly comparable to GPT-4 in capability. The model builds on Meituan's earlier 560-billion-parameter LongCat-Flash MoE model released in September 2025. It is believed to have been trained without Nvidia hardware, likely relying on Huawei's Ascend architecture. [Pandaily](https://pandaily.com/meituan-quietly-tests-trillion-parameter-ai-model-built-on-domestic-compute)

• **Moore Threads books triple-digit revenue growth, pushes toward 100,000-GPU clusters** — Domestic GPU maker Moore Threads reported first quarter revenue of 738 million yuan, up about 155% year over year. Q1 net profit attributable to shareholders was RMB 29 million (approx. USD 4.0 million), per Pandaily. The company is developing next-generation ultra-large clusters under its new "Huagang" architecture, targeting 100,000-GPU-scale systems, and secured a 660 million yuan order in March for its KUAE intelligent computing cluster. Moore Threads spent 1.305 billion yuan on R&D in 2025, equivalent to 86.68% of revenue. [Pandaily](https://pandaily.com/moore-threads-reports-strong-q1-revenue-growth-advances-100-000-gpu-cluster-development)

• **Pony.ai builds new robotaxi compute platform on Nvidia DRIVE Hyperion** — Pony.ai unveiled a new autonomous driving compute platform built on Nvidia DRIVE Hyperion and powered by Nvidia DRIVE AGX Thor with NVLink, with multichip configurations supporting up to 4,000 FP4 TFLOPS. The U.S.-listed Chinese company plans to scale its robotaxi fleet to more than 3,000 vehicles across more than 20 cities by year end. The platform is designed for the multi-sensor fusion, full-scenario perception, and complex environment understanding required for Level 4 autonomous driving. Nvidia DRIVE Thor's per-chip performance falls below the thresholds currently gating Commerce Department licensing for AI accelerators. [Pandaily](https://pandaily.com/pony-ai-unveils-next-gen-autonomous-driving-domain-controller-built-on-nvidia-drive-hyperion)

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3/ FEDERAL POLICY TRACKER

**Congress**

• **Senate Judiciary Committee to mark up S.3062 AI chatbot age verification bill Thursday** — The Senate Judiciary Committee scheduled a business meeting for Thursday, April 30, in Hart 216 to consider S.3062, which would require artificial intelligence chatbots to implement age verification measures and certain disclosures. The same meeting will consider S.1572 on the federal carjacking statute and S.3966 on contractual clauses restricting disclosure of sexual abuse of minors. Six nominations are also on the agenda including four judicial, one U.S. Attorney, and one U.S. Marshal. [Senate Judiciary](https://www.congress.gov/event/119th-congress/senate-event/338353)

• **Senate Armed Services Strategic Forces holds today's hearing on missile defense and Golden Dome** — The Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces convenes at 3:30 p.m. ET today in Russell 222 to examine Department of Defense missile defense activities under the FY27 Defense Authorization Request and Future Years Defense Program. The session covers Golden Dome architecture, the Missile Defense Agency portfolio, and Army Fires acquisition under the FY27 request. The Pentagon submitted its $1.5 trillion FY27 budget request to Congress earlier this month. Witnesses include the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy, DRPM Golden Dome for America Gen. Michael Guetlein, MDA Director Lt. Gen. Heath Collins, and Army Fires Portfolio Acquisition Executive Lt. Gen. Frank Lozano. [Senate Armed Services](https://www.congress.gov/event/119th-congress/senate-event/338330)

• **Senate Armed Services takes up SOCOM and CYBERCOM posture tomorrow** — The Senate Armed Services Committee scheduled an open/closed posture hearing on U.S. Special Operations Command and U.S. Cyber Command for Tuesday, April 28, at 11 a.m. in SD-G50. The session covers SOCOM and CYBERCOM's roles in the FY27 Defense Authorization Request and Future Years Defense Program, with the Pentagon's $54.6 billion FY27 ask for the Defense Autonomous Warfare Group — housed under SOCOM and a roughly 24,000% year-over-year increase — likely to draw scrutiny. The hearing falls in the same week as today's Strategic Forces missile defense session before the same committee. Witnesses include ASD Derrick M. Anderson (SO/LIC), ASD Katherine E. Sutton (Cyber Policy), Adm. Frank M. Bradley (SOCOM Commander), and Gen. Joshua M. Rudd (CYBERCOM Commander / NSA Director). [Senate Armed Services](https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/hearings/to-receive-testimony-on-the-posture-of-united-states-special-operations-command-and-united-states-cyber-command-in-review-of-the-defense-authorization-request-for-fiscal-year-2027-and-the-future-years-defense-program)

• **Sen. Tillis commits to support Warsh's Fed confirmation after DOJ assurances** — Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said Sunday he will support Kevin Warsh's nomination to chair the Federal Reserve after receiving "assurances" from the Department of Justice that the criminal investigation into current Chair Jerome Powell over the central bank's renovations has been closed, The Hill reported. Tillis is a member of the Senate Banking Committee. Powell's term as chair ends May 15. At his April 21 Senate Banking confirmation hearing, Warsh told Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.) that the Fed must architect oversight of payment system technologies in response to AI-driven cyber risks like Mythos, warning that otherwise the U.S. risks "losing to adversaries around the world in being the linchpin of the global economy." [The Hill](https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5849701-tillis-supports-warsh-nomination/)

**Regulatory Actions**

• **Federal $24 million funding announcement targets scrap-derived rare earth magnets for AI hardware** — The Department of Energy opened a $24 million funding opportunity announcement under its "Critical Minerals and Materials Accelerator" to prototype and test scrap-to-magnet rare earth recovery projects, Forbes reported. Applications are due June 25. The program targets advanced magnets used in AI hardware and defense systems. DOE expects to award 10–14 projects of up to $2 million each, targeting recovery of neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium and terbium, per Forbes. [Forbes](https://www.forbes.com/sites/noelfletcher/2026/04/26/magnets-are-a-critical-national-demand-developing-rare-earths-is-key/)

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5/ GLOBAL & GEOPOLITICS

• **UK ministers resist alignment with EU AI Act, citing tech sector and U.S. alliance** — UK ministers are resisting alignment with provisions of the EU AI Act, the Financial Times reported. Officials cite concerns about damage to the UK tech sector and the U.S. alliance. The position would mark a UK divergence from the EU regulatory bloc on frontier AI. [FT](https://www.ft.com/content/b1d1f9be-7790-4227-acec-80fa34dbdbc8)

• **DSIT and DESNZ project AI data center power demand an order of magnitude apart** — The UK Department for Science, Innovation and Technology projects AI data centers will need 6 gigawatts by 2030, while the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero appears to project less than a tenth of that, the Guardian reported. Researchers at UCL and the advocacy group Foxglove criticized the disconnect. The Guardian sourced the figures to internal departmental documents. The Guardian did not identify a Cabinet Office or Treasury role in reconciling the figures. [Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/apr/26/uk-departments-at-odds-over-energy-demands-of-ai-datacentres)

• **Google DeepMind formalizes national AI partnership with the Republic of Korea** — Google DeepMind announced a formal partnership with Korea's Ministry of Science and ICT under the country's K-Moonshot Missions, DeepMind said in a blog post. The partnership puts DeepMind frontier models behind Korean research missions in life sciences, energy, weather and climate. The agreement is part of DeepMind's National Partnerships for AI initiative. The announcement comes 10 years after the AlphaGo match in Seoul. [DeepMind](https://deepmind.google/blog/announcing-our-partnership-with-the-republic-of-korea/)