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The story
It has been reported that Rakuten Group is partnering with German defense startup Helsing, supporting the introduction of attack drones for the Ground Self-Defense Force and pushing toward domestic production.
On the thread, discussion spread over both the discomfort of seeing Rakuten enter the defense industry and a broader technical debate about whether Japan’s drone and AI technology really lags behind foreign players.
Rakuten Group is partnering with German defense startup Helsing. It will support introducing Helsing’s attack drones in Japan, including proposing them to the Ground Self-Defense Force, and is also considering domestic production of the drones in Japan.
Since the war in Ukraine, drones have increasingly become a primary weapon that can decide the course of a battle. In late October, German Chancellor Merz is set to make his first visit to Japan, planning to meet Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi to discuss security and other topics. Defense cooperation between Japan and Germany is starting to take shape.
Company valued at just under 3 trillion yen, also supplies the German military
Source: nikkei.com / Original article here
What people said
A humanoid robot torpedo — let's get Rakuten to build one.
Another article says it's for interception.
That's basically already happening, isn't it.
The MRJ's failure is said to come down to Mitsubishi's arrogance, complacency, and corporate culture.
Monju still isn't running.
Car tires fly off.
Helicopters go down.
Ships snap in half in the Indian Ocean.
Losing shipbuilding to South Korea stings.
Whatever they touch domestically, they end up 4th or 5th rate.
Cut out the weak companies that just live off government contracts.
Grow up-and-coming startups through open bidding.
Run competitive bids among multiple companies so they push each other to improve.
Bring costs down.
Build a defense industry that can actually compete globally.
Hand out amakudari posts and political favors, and the work rolls in even while you're asleep.
This corrupt structure is exactly what's ruining Japan's defense industry — and by extension, it's a national crisis.
Make defense procurement open bidding.
Stop the world's priciest sole-source contracts that always go to Company M [Mitsubishi].
In the Pacific War, one hit and the plane would burst into flames and go down.
We lost because of Mitsubishi's junk Zero fighters.
Grumman vs. Zero kill ratio: 200 planes to 5,000.
Don't repeat history.
Renault's already started.
Even Subaru is pitching unmanned fighters to the Ministry of Defense.
Mitsubishi Heavy and Kawasaki Heavy have nearly finished 6th-gen 'wingman' aircraft packed with smart AI, and linking them up with the F-35 is right around the corner — this is Japan's home turf.
Our civilian electronics tech isn't just for show.
If you don't know anything about military stuff, maybe just stay quiet lol
Germany's HELSING is a world leader in drones and AI, and Germany itself is a top-tier country too.
(HELSING built the CA-1 Europa, which rivals America's CCA collaborative combat aircraft — but while the US military's CCA is generally paired with a manned aircraft, the CA-1 Europa can fly into enemy territory and strike on its own, or handle air-superiority missions solo.)
Do you seriously think the US is the only one supplying onboard AI tech to Ukraine?
The attack drones "HF-1" and "HX-2" that Ukraine calls domestically made (Ukraine just got listed as a co-developer) were actually supplied by Germany's HELSING.
Both use AI for autonomous decision-making, so they don't need radio guidance — which means jamming doesn't work on them.
Also, the brain behind that so-called 'wingman' drone Mitsubishi Heavy and Kawasaki Heavy are pitching is US company Shield AI's 'Hivemind' — Japan didn't develop it lol.
(Whether the whole 'Loyal Wingman' concept is even feasible, and how much of the mission it's allowed to handle, is entirely up to the US lol. Hard to imagine the US giving up its tech sovereignty, so some kind of functional restrictions are pretty likely.)
Japanese companies don't have the technical chops — they can build the airframe but AI is beyond them lol (generative AI is their specialty though, as in their usual move of… copying, chasing whatever everyone else already did lol).
Hivemind is the AI that went 5-0 — and dominated — in simulated dogfights against manned fighters (flown by actual instructors). That's not something Japan could ever hope to match, so, well, can't be helped lol.
Japan's 'home turf' civilian electronics tech — you mean stuff like the My Number system or the COCOA app, right? lol
Real impressive technology there, seriously lol.
Even on the GCAP fighter program, Italy's Leonardo chairman basically said 'only the UK and Italy hold the core technology' lol.
Rakuten playing at being a political crony/war profiteer isn't going to last.
Part of that misunderstanding comes from the media calling them 'drone companies' in the first place.
Take Anduril — it releases various drones as a byproduct of vertical integration, but at its core are AI-based command-and-control, decision-making, and edge-AI autonomous-behavior technologies and products.
It's more accurate to say they're building something like Skynet.
This has gotta be a joke, come on.
The dominant robot-soldier design is four-legged and weapon-mounted, combining a human upper body with a horse-like body — basically a centaur type (they call it 'Cheiron').
The Ground Self-Defense Force is apparently adopting Kawasaki's Korleo too — Japan should bolt on an armed human upper body and go full centaur-type (Cheiron) autonomous weapon as well.
Robots drop from drones — Ukraine carries out the world's first 'unmanned airborne assault'
The next stage of warfare has arrived: an era where robots carried by drones (unmanned aircraft) attack from the air. Ukraine recently carried out what is, as far as is known, the first such attack in the world. This opens up new possibilities for unmanned systems working together to carry out missions that were previously impossible.
https://forbesjapan.com/articles/detail/102282
Kawasaki Heavy Industries' four-legged robot 'Korleo' — prototype coming in 2028, chasing the fun of actually riding it
https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXZQOUC272ZT0X20C26A7000000/
Let me know once that junky robot dog thing actually collapses the Surovikin Line and busts a path through to Crimea.
Makes you wonder what kind of connections Rakuten has to be pulling in something this sketchy from wherever it's coming from.
"Makes you wonder what kind of connections Rakuten has to be pulling in something this sketchy from wherever it's coming from."
Actually, Rakuten has been supporting six Ukrainian defense startups — Dwarf Engineering, Farsight Vision, Griselda, Lifesaver Sim, Swarmer, and Skyfall Industries (Skyfall's probably the best known of the bunch) — with their business expansion and exhibitions in Japan.
That connection is probably how they linked up with Germany.
HELSING is already supplying Ukraine with over 6,000 of these onboard-AI drones (jamming-proof), delivering several hundred a month.
Even Son wouldn't go this blatant, surely.
Classic case of clinging to the government for a lifeline.
Pathetic that this is what you resort to when you're strapped for cash.
Background and Key Points
Rakuten is best known in Japan as an e-commerce and telecom conglomerate whose loss-making Rakuten Mobile arm has strained the group’s finances for years; its move into defense procurement is a sharp departure from that consumer-facing brand. Helsing, valued at nearly 3 trillion yen, is a German AI-defense firm that already supplies the Bundeswehr and has delivered thousands of jamming-resistant, AI-guided drones to Ukraine under names like HX-2 and HF-1 — systems Kyiv has publicized as “domestically made” despite German origin. Japan’s Ground Self-Defense Force operates under a procurement system long dominated by sole-source contracts with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, a arrangement posters tie to past failures like the MRJ jet program and the Monju reactor, and which upcoming Japan-Germany defense talks around Chancellor Merz’s October visit could start to loosen.
The thread’s real fault line isn’t about drones generally — it’s whether Japan’s AI and autonomous-systems capability is genuinely behind Germany’s, or whether Japanese firms like Kawasaki and Mitsubishi are already competitive. That argument gets undercut from within the thread itself: posters note the “wingman” drone program touted as Japanese uses Shield AI’s American Hivemind software, meaning even the domestic showcase project isn’t domestically built at the AI layer.
What the thread leaves underexplained is Rakuten’s actual role: by its own account it has been supporting Ukrainian defense startups’ business expansion in Japan, which plausibly explains the Helsing link, and a Nikkei report cited mid-thread indicates Rakuten has only secured hardware access while an undisclosed partner would run any actual GSDF trials — a much narrower position than “Rakuten builds attack drones.”
*This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (Business News+) thread “[Corporate] Rakuten pushes attack drones, advancing GSDF deployment and domestic production — partners with major German startup.”
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