(Reuters) - China's Manus AI announced on Tuesday a strategic partnership with the team behind tech giant Alibaba's Qwen AI models, a move that could bolster the artificial intelligence start-up's roll-out of what it called the world's first general AI agent.

Unlike a chatbot, an AI agent can operate as a digital employee, executing tasks independently and with minimal prompts.

Manus AI launched last week, claiming that its performance surpasses that of OpenAI's AI agent, DeepResearch.

The launch quickly went viral on Chinese social media, as many drew parallels with the Hangzhou-based creators of the chatbot DeepSeek, who shocked Silicon Valley by introducing an AI chatbot comparable to OpenAI's best products at a fraction of the cost.

The partnership with Qwen could further shake up an industry still reeling from DeepSeek's emergence.

Manus AI, which has offices in Beijing and Wuhan and is part of Beijing Butterfly Effect Technology Ltd Co, has marketed its product by completing dozens of tasks for users on X for free.

However, the AI agent remains accessible by invitation only and its website is struggling with increasing malfunctions, the company has admitted on X.

The partnership with Qwen could help Manus deal with the surge in traffic and expand its user base, while Alibaba looks to gain an edge over competitors like DeepSeek.

The two sides will collaborate based on Qwen's open-source AI models and aim to integrate Manus' functions as an AI agent with AI models and computing platforms in China, Manus said on social media platform Weibo.

A spokesperson for Alibaba confirmed the partnership.

"We look forward to collaborating with more global AI innovators," the spokesperson said.

The team behind the Qwen AI models was one of the first to respond to DeepSeek's global success in January, a few days later during a public holiday releasing a model it claimed surpassed DeepSeek-V3.