Rakuten and AST SpaceMobile have agreed to set up Rakuten AST, a joint venture to build a satellite network that connects directly to ordinary smartphones in Japan, the companies said in a joint release on 9 November. Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications selected the plan, and the venture is expected to receive up to 148 billion yen, about $1 billion, over approximately three years.
That is about 49.3 billion yen a year, by our arithmetic. The companies target domestic operations by the end of March 2029, 876 days after the 6 November agreement, by our arithmetic.
Short explainer · Satellite constellations
Our 31 October news Short on Starlink’s share of active satellites, 11,184 of 16,848. It does not discuss Rakuten AST.
The key insight: Japan has selected Rakuten and AST SpaceMobile’s joint venture for up to 148 billion yen, about $1 billion, over approximately three years to build a Japanese-operated satellite network that reaches ordinary smartphones, with Rakuten holding 51% of the voting rights.
Per the release, Rakuten Group holds 51% of the voting rights and an AST SpaceMobile subsidiary in Japan holds 49%. The venture’s legal capital is 100 million yen, its chief executive is Ryoji Osaka, and its business is “Satellite procurement, and the operation and management of satellite connectivity.”
The funding comes through Japan’s J-LEO project, which the release describes as the “Japan Low Earth Orbit Satellite Communications Project”. AST SpaceMobile “will supply the satellites to power Japan’s sovereign D2D constellation”, the release says, while the base station equipment sits on the ground so Japanese operators can run the network themselves.
Voting rights and the up-to-148-billion-yen J-LEO support are from the companies’ joint release of 9 November 2026; the annual figure is our arithmetic.
What Was Posted on X
RAKUTEN & $ASTS FORM JAPAN JV BACKED BY UP TO $1B IN GOVERNMENT FUNDING
The new venture, Rakuten AST, will be owned 51% by Rakuten and 49% by AST.
It will receive up to ¥148B over approximately three years to build a Japanese-operated satellite network connecting directly to regular smartphones.
The project plans to use Rakuten’s 20+20 MHz of 1.7GHz spectrum, with AST supplying the satellites.
Domestic operations are targeted by March 2029, with approximately 40–50 satellites planned.
Capacity not needed over Japan could also serve AST’s international customers, subject to regulatory approval.
Wall St Engine’s post at 11:06 UTC on 9 November summarises the deal: Rakuten AST will be owned 51% by Rakuten and 49% by AST, with up to 148 billion yen over about three years. The post is the source for the 20+20 MHz of 1.7GHz spectrum mentioned in this piece; the companies’ release does not give it.
Why Japan Wants Its Own Network
The release frames the network as disaster resilience and economic security: service in areas with little or no ground coverage, and connectivity during emergencies through roaming between mobile operators. Rakuten AST also plans to offer capacity to AST SpaceMobile’s customers worldwide, subject to regulatory approval.
Rakuten Mobile also plans to work with AST SpaceMobile on “AI edge computing” and AI-driven spectrum management, the release says. A post on X by Wall St Engine adds that the project plans to use Rakuten’s 20+20 MHz of 1.7GHz spectrum.
What AST Brings
According to the release, AST’s next-generation satellites will carry the largest phased array ever deployed in low Earth orbit, about 223 square metres, and its first BlueBird satellites reached a peak downlink speed of 98.9 Mbps to standard phones. AST says it has agreements with about 60 mobile network operators representing over 3 billion subscribers.
As we read the release, the state is paying for a domestic layer on top of a foreign supplier: the satellites come from AST SpaceMobile, while the ground equipment and operation sit in Japan.
As we read it, the timeline is long: operations are targeted by the end of March 2029, 876 days after the agreement, by our arithmetic.
Rakuten and AST SpaceMobile joint release, 9 November 2026
“AST SpaceMobile will supply the satellites to power Japan’s sovereign D2D constellation.”
Three Implications
FOR RAKUTEN MOBILE The release calls the project a key pillar of Rakuten Mobile’s networkstrategy and says commercial-environment testing of its satellite-to-mobile service is planned within 2026.
FOR AST SPACEMOBILE Per the release, Rakuten AST plans to offer capacity to AST’s customers worldwide, subject to regulatory approval.
FOR THE SPECTRUM DETAIL The 20+20 MHz of 1.7GHz spectrum comes from a post on X by Wall St Engine, not from the release.
What Is Not Established
The release gives no satellite count, launch schedule or split of the 148 billion yen between satellites and ground equipment. The spectrum detail comes from the Wall St Engine post, not the release. The venture’s establishment is listed as planned for November 2026, and the grant is to be received after it is set up.
This Week In The AI Supercycle
The Great Convergence of Capital, Power, and Geopolitics
This week’s issue: for two years the AI build-out was priced as a supply story, and last week as a credit story. This week it was priced as a permission story, and the answer arrived as a cost, not a ban.
Japan has selected Rakuten and AST SpaceMobile’s joint venture for up to 148 billion yen, about $1 billion, to build a Japanese-operated satellite-to-smartphone network, with Rakuten holding 51%. Operations are targeted by the end of March 2029, 876 days from the agreement, by our arithmetic.
A note on sourcing. The venture’s structure, funding, timeline and quotations are from Rakuten and AST SpaceMobile’s joint release of 9 November 2026. The spectrum detail is from a post on X by Wall St Engine. Annual and day-count figures are our arithmetic.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
