Diverging from Big Tech to prioritise low cost

RAKUTEN GROUPIS expanding its AI team under the stewardship of a Google veteran and building models with a focus on cost efficiency.

- MIN JEONG LEE

Ting Cai, now three years into his tenure at the head of the e-commerce pioneer’s AI team, has the task of creating systems that would augment its businesses and support the handling of commercial transactions at a low cost. He oversees a team that’s grown to 1,000 this year and has a battery of “thousands” of Nvidia chips to work with.

Tokyo-based Rakuten is wrestling with a struggling mobile business and constant competition in online shopping, both of which could get a significant boost from effective deployment of new AI tools. But the emphasis on doing that profitably from early on is where the company stands out from other large tech firms.