AI NewsWavePublic Institution AI Innovation Challenge Awards: KEPCO and Korea Marine Environment Management Corporation Win Top Prizes
Key points
- 2026 Public Institution AI Innovation Challenge awards held on the 28th
- KEPCO and Korea Marine Environment Management Corporation win top prizes
- Cases span welfare, marine and energy sectors
The 2026 Public Institution AI Innovation Challenge results event, jointly hosted by the Ministry of Economy and Finance and the Ministry of Science and ICT and organized by the National Information Society Agency, was held on the 28th at Nurimkkum Square in Mapo-gu, Seoul. According to Newsis, it was the first year the challenge was held, and Hellot reported that it is the public-sector track of the nationwide AI competition that has run since March this year.
Newsis and Digital Today reported that Incheon International Airport Corporation and Korea Western Power won the grand prize. Newsis explained that the two institutions were selected for cases in which they used AI to raise safety management levels and cut costs. Korea NGO Times reported that Incheon Airport was recognized for building a proactive aviation safety management system using AI.
Awards by institution were reported as follows. According to Electimes and Newsis, Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) received the Deputy Prime Minister's Award, the top prize, for an AI-based service to prevent lonely deaths that detects risk by analyzing power and telecommunications data. According to Logistics News, the Korea Marine Environment Management Corporation received the top prize in the AI utilization best practice category for a project using AI to survey and collect marine debris. Daily Pharm reported that the National Health Insurance Service received the top prize in the demonstration and PoC category for an AI model that uses national health insurance big data to detect abnormal signs in medical use. According to Digital Daily, the Korea Social Security Information Service received an excellence award after expanding the AI discovery models of its welfare blind spot detection system from one type to 24 and raising the welfare service support rate from 20.1% in 2016 to 63.9% in 2025.
Other award cases followed. iNews24 reported that the Korea Real Estate Board received the Deputy Prime Minister's Award for AI-based real estate price estimation technology. Logistics News reported that the Korea Ocean Business Corporation received the Deputy Prime Minister's Award for technology demonstration results using AI to detect container damage and check hazardous material labels. Newsis and Gas News reported that the Korea National Oil Corporation received the AI Innovation Award, the Award of the President of the National Information Society Agency. The categories and names of the awards were reported differently by institution.
Glossary A PoC (proof of concept) verifies on a small scale whether a technology is actually effective before full-scale adoption.