South Korea's Ministry of Science and ICT will hold a competition to develop AI algorithms using autonomous driving training data.

MSIT will recruit participants for the 2026 Autonomous Driving AI Challenge from July 1 to 31. The event, now in its third year, will provide training data built through the Autonomous Driving Technology Development Innovation Project jointly 추진 by MSIT, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, and the National Police Agency. It will evaluate the performance and suitability of the AI algorithms developed by participants.

Last year's competition drew 154 teams including universities and startups, recording competition of about 17 to 1. It evaluated capabilities such as object detection, pixel-level segmentation and movement trajectory prediction.

This year, reflecting trends in autonomous driving AI technology, the contest is divided into three areas: motion planning, future trajectory prediction around autonomous vehicles, and end-to-end (E2E) driving.

In the motion planning category, participants will develop a model that determines a vehicle's future driving route based on 9.1 seconds of driving data including high-definition maps. The future trajectory prediction category analyzes 1 second of movement by nearby vehicles and pedestrians to forecast their paths over the following 8 seconds. In the E2E driving category, participants will develop a model that generates the full driving path using only footage from 6 cameras mounted on a vehicle.

The data provided for the competition was collected based on the 'Autonomous Driving E2E Data Construction Guidelines and Specification Definition' published by MSIT last month. After the competition ends, the training data used will be made public through the Korea Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute's Technology Verification Experience Platform, e-PreTX.

Companies, university and graduate students, and members of the public can participate by forming teams of 3 to 4 people. The main contest will run from Aug. 10 to Sept. 23. Participating teams can submit their algorithms up to 5 times.

MSIT will select a total of 9 teams, the top 3 teams in each category, after expert evaluation and verification. Winning teams will receive MSIT minister's awards, Information and Communications Technology Planning and Evaluation Institute president's awards, Korea Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute president's awards, and prize money totaling 22.5 million won.

A briefing session for participants will be held in Seoul on Aug. 5. Participants who submit results will also be offered job interview opportunities with about 15 domestic autonomous driving companies.

Park Tae-wan (박태완), director general for information and communications industry policy at MSIT, said, "To strengthen competitiveness in autonomous driving technology, it is necessary not only to secure data and advance AI but also to foster outstanding researchers." He added, "We will support participants so their capabilities can carry over to the industrial field."