Japanese tech giant Rakuten is set to launch its proprietary large language model (LLM), similar to OpenAI's ChatGPT, leveraging its diverse businesses to train the model on unique datasets. CEO Hiroshi Mikitani emphasizes the company's unparalleled dataset, spanning banking, e-commerce, and telecommunications. The AI model aims to enhance internal operations and marketing efficiency by 20%. Rakuten plans to offer the model to third-party businesses, following in the footsteps of Amazon and Microsoft. While no specific timeline for the launch is provided, an announcement related to the LLM is expected in the coming months. This move reflects a broader trend among Japanese tech firms, such as NTT and SoftBank, catching up with their U.S. and Chinese counterparts in developing language models, potentially giving them an advantage in creating models specific to the Japanese language. Mikitani sees Rakuten's foray into AI as a driver for "huge profitable growth.