Lee Gyu-lee is a business writer at The Korea Times, focusing primarily on IT & telecommunications, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and KOTRA. Prior to this, she has covered a wide range of cultural news, from film, television and K-pop to lifestyle and fashion.
Kling AI spotlights advances in AI video through global competition
Kling AI NEXTGEN 2026 Korea University Creative Challenge Grand Awards winners and judges pose after an award ceremony at Seoul Film Center in central Seoul, Tuesday. Courtesy of MBC C&I
By Lee Gyu-lee
Kling AI, the artificial intelligence (AI) video arm of Chinese short‑form giant Kuaishou, held its NEXTGEN Awards Ceremony on Tuesday, spotlighting how AI‑native filmmaking is lowering barriers to professional production and pushing generative video models into the mainstream for a new generation of creators.
Zeng Yushen, Kling AI’s head of global operations and marketing, speaks during its NEXTGEN Awards Ceremony at Seoul Film Center in central Seoul, Tuesday. Courtesy of MBC C&I
Co-hosted with MBC C&I’s AI Contents Lab and the Korean Society for Media Policy Studies (KSMPS), the event brought together winners from the company’s three competitions — the NEXTGEN 2026 Korea University Creative Challenge, the NEXTGEN Campus AIGC Creation Competition in China and the Global 4K Short Film Creative Contest — held throughout the first half of this year.
The competitions were designed to encourage creators to transform ideas into cinematic‑quality visual content using Kling AI's video‑generation models.
Together, the university contests attracted more than 12,700 submissions from nearly 30 universities across Korea and China, while the global 4K competition, open to creators worldwide, drew entries from about 9,000 creators.
“We have always believed that technology should not be cold and impersonal but rather should serve as a bridge that transforms creativity into reality,” Zeng Yushen, Kling AI’s head of global operations and marketing, said during the ceremony at Seoul Film Center in central Seoul.
"Our goal is to break down the technical barriers of traditional filmmaking so that every bold, imaginative idea has the opportunity to become a professional-quality visual production."
The university challenge in Korea partnered with 10 universities, including Korea University, Chung-Ang University and Hongik University, offering workshops at eight universities nationwide to over 180 undergraduate and graduate students for practical training in generative AI video production and mentoring from professional creators ahead of the competition.
The program recognized standout student projects with five Grand Awards, 15 Finalist Awards and four Social Buzz Awards.
An audience watches an artificial intelligence (AI)‑generated short film that won Kling AI NEXTGEN 2026 Korea University Creative Challenge during the awards ceremony at Seoul Film Center in central Seoul, Tuesday. Courtesy of MBC C&I
The China-based campus competition presented three Apex Awards and six Vanguard Awards, while the global 4K short film contest honored one Gold Award winner, a creator from Malaysia, and three Silver Award recipients.
MBC C&I Director Hwang Seon-suk said the competition illustrated how AI is enabling a new generation of creators to turn imagination into cinematic storytelling while fostering cross-border creative collaboration.
"Today, we are sharing the journey of next-generation creators from Korea and China, who took Kling AI's advanced video-generation technology and transformed a single idea into theater-quality visual productions," Hwang said during her keynote speech.
"Creators from Korea and China, speaking different languages and coming from different cultures, have each shaped their own worlds using the same technology. I believe that is the true potential of creativity in the AI era."