Rakuten expands in India by setting up new facility

Japanese Internet services and e-commerce group, Rakuten's India unit, is opening a new office in Bengaluru on Thursday, in a bid to expand globally. The new facility houses product, engineering, and advanced research and is Rakuten Group's "largest outside Japan," according to the company. The hub will further enhance the company's capability for deep-tech innovation and research and development (R&D) in areas such as e-commerce, fintech, content and entertainment, as well as artificial intelligence (AI) in computer vision, speech, and natural language processing (NLP), the company said in a statement. Rakuten's online shopping platform is not available in India, but the $15 billion company already has an India office in Bengaluru that was set up in 2014, which, according to the company, was "the largest among its nine technology hubs outside Japan". It currently has around 2,000 employees, responsible for developing software for the company's online brokerage arm, as well as running a 24-hour security operation.