Rakuten AI 3.0 EXPOSED? Japan’s “Homegrown” Model Accused of Copying DeepSeek

Mar 26, 2026 | News On Japan

Mar 26, 2026 (East Tech Now) - Rakuten AI 3.0 was introduced as Japan’s most powerful self-developed large language model — a supposed breakthrough for the country’s domestic AI industry. But within hours of its launch, serious controversy erupted.

Open-source researchers began analyzing the model files and discovered technical clues allegedly linking Rakuten AI 3.0 to DeepSeek, a well-known open-source large model from China. The accusations quickly spread across the global tech community, raising major questions about originality, open-source compliance, government subsidies, and corporate transparency.

In this video, we break down:

What Rakuten claimed at launch

Why the model was accused of being a “wrapper” around DeepSeek

The Hugging Face evidence that triggered the backlash

Why this became a credibility crisis in Japan

The bigger implications for open-source AI and global competition

This is not just a story about one company. It reflects a much deeper issue in the AI race: where do we draw the line between open-source adaptation and misleading claims of “independent development”?

Source: East Tech Now

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