Rakuten wesentlich besser als Rocket
Next-gen Japanese Large Language Model R&D to begin in August, with aim to realize highly personalized AI agents
Tokyo, July 15, 2025 - Rakuten Group, Inc. today announced it has been selected for the third term of the Generative AI Accelerator Challenge (GENIAC) project promoted by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) and the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) with the aim of strengthening Japan's generative AI development.
https://global.rakuten.com/corp/news/press/2025/0715_02.html
July 02, 2025
Rakuten Mobile Park Miyagi is constantly evolving into a space where a wide range of customers can enjoy themselves, not just baseball fans. In this RNN video, two second-year Rakutenians from Rakuten Baseball report from the stadium grounds the highlights of the 2025 season renovations. The newly introduced karaoke gondola and sauna-style gondola are must-see additions!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOEM2mV63Ek&t=7s
July 11, 2025
On the sidelines of Rakuten Optimism U.S. 2025, Rakuten International CEO Amit Patel reveals the global businesses driving company growth, how Rakuten leverages AI to boost efficiency and innovation, and the importance of building resilience in the workplace.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XziBZo1hpc4
July 11, 2025
On the sidelines of Rakuten Optimism U.S. 2025, Rakuten International COO Adrienne Down Coulson shares strategies for empowering a diverse, global workforce and navigating change, highlighting exciting recent initiatives in the region.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4zsO77_m6U
April 24, 2025
In this episode, we sit down with Yusuke Kobayashi, Group Managing Executive Officer and Vice Director of Rakuten's Commerce & Marketing Company, who reveals how Rakuten is democratizing AI for over 50,000 merchants. Discover how we're evolving from "analysis to action" with AI tools that don't just provide data but recommend specific business actions across marketing, product handling, and logistics.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POvXtdMKj68
By Keith Dyer
12 June 2025
AT&T expansion is just the beginning of Rakuten Symphony's ambitions in AI operations, as it eyes a future iPhone moment for the AI user interface.
After MWC 2024, TMN wrote about how AT&T was adopting new site management software from Rakuten Symphony to digitise and automate the process of deploying, upgrading and managing sites across its network.
At the time, we quoted Igal Elbaz, SVP, Network CTO, AT&T saying that there were around 7,000 users of Rakuten Symphony’s Site Management software amongst those responsible for deploying and managing its sites, with the software replacing a large number of legacy systems. Elbaz also said there was potential for AT&T to expand its use of Rakuten Symphony’s automated solutions.
He said, “There has been a lot of benefit already in the migration from the old systems to the new system… We’re very excited about this and are thinking about where else we can extend that capability in other parts where we are doing engineering and build,”
Today Rakuten Symphony and AT&T have announced an expansion of their work together, with the operator giving an wider role to Rakuten Symphony’s Site Manager within its processes for managing its Open RAN site re-build, as well as fibre site rollout. A release from the two companies said AT&T has extended a multiyear collaboration agreement to expand adoption of Rakuten Symphony Site Management to accelerate AT&T’s Network Simplification Transformation project and 5G Open RAN deployments.
The company said there are now 10,000 users of the software, which is being used to manage and co-ordinate AT&T’s site swaps and consolidations as it moves to its Ericsson RAN layer, which includes Ericsson’s support for Open RAN interfaces, and a medium term plan to shift to a cloud-native foundation. AT&T has said it wants 70% of its wireless network traffic to “move across open and interoperable platforms” by late 2026, and has started ramping up its Open RAN deployments in 2025. The operator is also using the software to orchestrate and support the deployment of its fibre expansion plans.
https://the-mobile-network.com/2025/06/...i-ops-to-its-iphone-moment/
Inside Rakuten AI Episode 4: Guangda Li on reinventing customer experiences with GenAI
April 01, 2025
In this fascinating episode, we sit down with Guangda Li, Rakuten Asia AI & Data Division General Manager, AI Lab. Guangda shares insights on how the Rakuten AI Assistant is transforming customer experiences through personalized, multi-modal, and universal solutions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2s__kQwtfvk
July 15, 2025
AST SpaceMobile, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASTS) is among the 13 Best Booming Stocks to Buy Now. On July 3, the company announced it had secured an additional $100 million equipment financing facility led by Triniti, intended to aid ASTS’s network deployment and manufacturing goals in 2025 and 2026.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/...ile-inc-asts-secures-210705130.html
https://www.rakuten-sec.co.jp/web/company/newsrelease/fy2025.html
SUNNYVALE, Calif., July 15, 2025--Yugabyte, the distributed database experts, today announced key business outcomes with Rakuten Mobile, Japan's newest and most modern mobile network, as a result of their long-standing partnership. Over four years of successful collaboration have resulted in high availability for mission-critical systems, with effortless scalability supporting reduced operational overhead and increased business growth. The two companies partnered to architect and deliver the foundation for Autonomous Network Operations and together are transforming how telecom infrastructure is built and operated.
YugabyteDB plays a key role in enabling Rakuten Mobile to efficiently deliver several key modernization initiatives, including Kubernetes cloud-native architecture for OSS and BSS infrastructure, AI-driven operations for autonomous networks with automated fault prediction and corrective actions, and enabling its "Telco-as-a-Service" platform. Joint efforts have enabled Rakuten Mobile to deliver these initiatives at a massive scale without disruption, all while maintaining service continuity.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/...rship-rakuten-mobile-130000620.html
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/...bile-skyrocketed-121-110500047.html
Rising demand for flexible, cost-efficient networks drives Open RAN growth as operators seek vendor diversity and lower costs.
Pune, April 11, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Open RAN Market Size Analysis:
“The SNS Insider report indicates that the Open RAN Market was valued at USD 5.1 billion in 2023 and is projected to reach USD 41.5 billion by 2032, growing at a CAGR of 26.24% during the forecast period from 2024 to 2032.”
Major Players Analysis Listed in this Report are:
•§Rakuten Symphony – Symware
•§Parallel Wireless – OpenRAN Controller
•§Mavenir – Open vRAN
•§Nokia – AirScale Open RAN
•§Ericsson – Cloud RAN
•§Samsung – vRAN 3.0
•§NEC Corporation – Open RAN Radio Units
•§Fujitsu – Open RAN 5G Radio Unit
•§Intel Corporation – FlexRAN
•§Qualcomm – 5G Open RAN Platform
•§VMware – RIC (RAN Intelligent Controller)
•§Dell Technologies – Open Telecom Ecosystem Lab
•§Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) – Open RAN Solution Stack
https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2025/...y-SNS-Insider.html