HomeJapanese Giant AI Model Accused of Copying DeepSeek
A high-profile launch in Japan's tech sector has ignited a public debate about technological transparency. Rakuten Group recently unveiled what it describes as the "largest and most powerful" large language model developed in-house. This 70-billion-parameter model is a major outcome of a project supported by Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) under its GENIAC initiative. Shortly after its release, however, the open-source community began questioning if it was merely a repackaged version of an existing model.
Developers discovered that the model's core architecture and configuration file pointed unmistakably to a model created by a Chinese team. Evidence indicates Rakuten's model not only retained the original identifier "DeepseekV3ForCausalLM" but was in fact a fine-tuned adaptation using Japanese data, not a ground-up development.
The controversy revolves around what many see as a "gray area" in Rakuten's communications and license management:
Inadequate Disclosure: The official press release only mentioned "integrating the essence of the open-source community," failing to acknowledge the foundational model's origin.
License Management Issues: The community highlighted that Rakuten's initial release may have omitted the required MIT license files. While a NOTICE file was added later to comply with legal terms, this retroactive fix was criticized as lacking openness and genuine intent.
To date, Rakuten Group has not directly addressed the removal of license files or the striking architectural similarities.
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A high-profile launch in Japan's tech sector has ignited a public debate about technological transparency. Rakuten Group recently unveiled what it describes as the "largest and most powerful" large language model developed in-house. This 70-billion-parameter model is a major outcome of a project supported by Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) under its GENIAC initiative. Shortly after its release, however, the open-source community began questioning if it was merely a repackaged version of an existing model.
Developers discovered that the model's core architecture and configuration file pointed unmistakably to a model created by a Chinese team. Evidence indicates Rakuten's model not only retained the original identifier "DeepseekV3ForCausalLM" but was in fact a fine-tuned adaptation using Japanese data, not a ground-up development.
The controversy revolves around what many see as a "gray area" in Rakuten's communications and license management:
Inadequate Disclosure: The official press release only mentioned "integrating the essence of the open-source community," failing to acknowledge the foundational model's origin.
License Management Issues: The community highlighted that Rakuten's initial release may have omitted the required MIT license files. While a NOTICE file was added later to comply with legal terms, this retroactive fix was criticized as lacking openness and genuine intent.
To date, Rakuten Group has not directly addressed the removal of license files or the striking architectural similarities.
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