Japan's Trade Ministry to Support Rakuten's Next-Generation AI Model

Jul 15, 2025 | News On Japan

TOKYO - The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has decided to support Rakuten Group’s development of a next-generation generative AI base model, according to reporting by TV Tokyo. Rakuten is expected to begin developing a large language model in August with 700 billion parameters—one of the largest in Japan.

The model will reportedly be trained using data from the so-called Rakuten ecosystem, which has over 2 billion users worldwide, with the aim of creating a proprietary AI agent capable of offering personalized recommendations. The ministry plans to support the AI development efforts of 24 companies in total, including Rakuten.

Source: テレ東BIZ

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