LG Uplus said on Saturday that the 'U Th AI Shorts Festival' it held with YouTube wrapped up successfully, with a total of 5,009 works submitted.

The U Th AI Shorts Festival is a shorts video contest aimed at discovering creative talent in the AI era and spreading a culture of content production using generative AI. This year’s event, held for the second time following last year, ran from June 8 to July 31 as part of the Ministry of Science and ICT-led 'Nationwide AI Competition'.

The contest was run in the 'Simply' category, which uses Google’s generative AI model Gemini and others to express individuality and identity, and the 'Arts' category, which produces content on the theme of voice.

Judging was handled by experts in content and storytelling, AI creative work, and AI technology and academia. The judging panel said, "Even within the same theme, we were able to see a variety of genres and high-quality works," and added, "It was impressive that they developed AI’s expressive possibilities through their own directing."

A total of 11 people, including the grand prize winners such as the recipient of the science ministry minister’s award, will take part in an AI training program in September on a six-night, eight-day itinerary that includes visits to Google’s office in San Francisco and LA Dataland. The winning works are also set to be exhibited at U+ Daily Extraordinary Gap, which is set to newly open on Sept. 16.

LG Uplus also ran an offline pop-up exhibition and AI educator classes at 'U+ Daily Extraordinary Gap'. More than 3,000 people visited during the event period, and 331 aspiring creators took part in the AI educator classes held a total of 15 times. The training consisted of hands-on courses by level, from writing prompts to producing actual videos.

Darim Kim (김다림), head of marketing communications at LG Uplus, said, "We will continue to work with various partners to expand the AI creative ecosystem and create opportunities for future creators to grow."