Science ministry awards 32 teams in AI, XR developer contest

The science ministry said Thursday it awarded 32 teams at the 2026 Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Convergence (XR) Service Developer Contest, capping a five-month competition that drew 497 teams and 1,029 participants.

Among the grand prize winners in the developer category were Gamut, recognized for an AI and 3D-based personal fashion social networking service, and Tucode, for a web-based science experiment and inquiry learning service called Ans2Quest. In the creator category, the grand prizes went to Jeongjun People for "Maple Guardians: Protect the Maple Tree," built on MapleStory characters, and SSAMPPONG Studio for "Koreapunk 2026," a third-person shooter set in Korean back alleys. Runner-up honors included JARVIS, a mixed-reality collaboration system that combines gestures and voice with an AI agent on Meta Quest 3, and BODA, an AI glasses-based hearing support service called SeeSay that provides subtitles and notifications.

This year's competition, now in its sixth edition, split entrants into a developer division and a creator division, and supported AI development tools and factored AI usage into evaluations for the first time. Fourteen domestic and foreign companies including Roblox, Nexon Korea, Upstage and Unity Technologies Korea sponsored the event, providing mentoring and judging. Participants included 258 elementary, middle and high school students and 771 young people of university age or older.

The ministry will offer follow-up support for winners' employment, startups and commercialization. Adult winning teams that want it will receive internships linked to sponsor companies and startup consulting, and Gamut will get a chance to take part in the K-Digital Grand Championship.

"Through this contest, young developers and creators showed their ability to turn creative ideas into actual services and content," said Nam Cheol-ki, the ministry's software policy director. "We will continue to strengthen cooperation with private companies to discover and nurture outstanding talent in AI and virtual convergence, and actively support their path to employment, startups and commercialization."