South Korea's Ministry of Science and ICT on Tuesday held an awards ceremony for the 2026 AI and extended reality (XR) service developer contest at the Virtual Convergence Industry Hub in Pangyo, Seongnam.

Now in its sixth year, the contest drew 497 teams and 1,029 participants, including 258 elementary, middle and high school students and 771 young people who were university students or older. Over about 5 months, participants took part in service and content production training and one-on-one mentoring to turn ideas into services and content.

The contest was split into a developer division to build AI-XR services and a creator division using user-generated content (UGC) platforms such as Roblox and MapleStory Worlds. From this year, reflecting the importance of AI skills in the service development process, participants received additional support for AI development tools and AI usage was also factored into evaluation.

Fourteen companies in South Korea and abroad, including Roblox, Nexon Korea, Upstage and Unity Technologies Korea, also joined as sponsors to support tasks, mentoring and evaluation.

After document screening, presentations and final evaluation, 32 teams and 84 people won awards. The grand prize, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Science and ICT Award, went to the Gamut team in the developer division for an AI and 3D-based personal fashion social networking service and the Tocode team for a web-based science experiment and inquiry learning service.

In the creator division, the grand prize went to the Jeongjun Saramdeul team, which produced content using MapleStory characters, and the SSAMPPONG Studio team, which developed the third-person shooter game "Koreapunk 2026" set in Korean alleyways. The excellence award went to entries including "JARVIS," which enables collaboration with AI through gestures and voice in a mixed reality (MR) environment, and "SeeSay," a hearing support service using AI glasses.

MSIT will also provide follow-up support such as internships linked to sponsor companies and startup consulting for adult award-winning teams. It will also provide Gamut, the adult grand prize winner in the developer division, with an opportunity to take part in the K-Digital Grand Championship.

Nam Cheol-gi (남철기), director general for software policy at MSIT, said, "We will continue to discover and foster outstanding talent in AI and XR, and actively support them so it can lead to employment, startups and commercialization."