Japanese e-commerce firm Rakuten opens R&D centre in Bengaluru

Japanese e-commerce major Rakuten on Monday said it had opened its India research and development (R&D) institute here to focus on deep learning, computer vision and robotics for warehouse logistics applications.

"The Rakuten Institute of Technology (RIT) at our operations centre in Bengaluru will combine creativity and innovation with emerging technologies to fuel the growth of e-commerce," said the Tokyo-based internet firm in a statement here.

The 20-year-old firm's five other research centres are in Tokyo, Paris, Singapore, Boston and San Mateo in the US.

The company's B2B2C platform Rakuten Ichiba is the largest e-site in Japan and among the world's largest by sales.

"India has a vibrant computer science research community in Bengaluru and we look forward to collaborate with academic researchers to discover and develop new technology applications," said the Institute's global head Masaya Mori on the occasion.

(With inputs from agencies.)