Kling AI, an artificial intelligence video generation platform, has held an awards ceremony for a university student creative contest in Seoul, expanding its collaboration with Korean creators.
Kling AI said Wednesday that it held the "Kling AI NextGen 2026 University Creative Challenge" awards ceremony the previous day at the Seoul Film Center in Jung-gu, Seoul. The event was arranged as an occasion to share the achievements of Korean university creators who produced various forms of content, including films, music videos, and advertisements, using AI video tools.
About 500 Korean undergraduate and graduate students participated in the competition, with a total of 184 works submitted from 60 universities nationwide. Kling AI held the competition together with MBC C&I and the Korean Media Policy Society, with 10 partner universities participating, including Korea University, Seoul Institute of the Arts, Hongik University, Chung-Ang University, Inha University, Konkuk University, Kookmin University, Pusan National University, Dongseo University, and Dong Seoul University. After registration opened in April, AI video production workshops were held centered on the partner universities, providing students with education on production workflows, prompt design, and AI video creation.
The submitted works spanned various genres, including short feature films, music videos, commercial advertisements, and experimental videos. "The Well," the Grand Award winner, was recognized for achieving a filming texture close to that of a live-action film, while "BARI DEIGI" reinterpreted Korean traditional mythology through the music video format.
Park Ji-soo, 24, a Hongik University student and award winner, said, "The biggest advantage of AI, particularly Kling AI, is that it can be used selectively as needed at every stage of creation." She added, "AI can be applied at the necessary stages, from conceiving ideas and creating storyboards to image generation, video production, and post-production editing, while the parts you want to express directly can still be completed on your own." Director Min Kyu-dong of the films "Paragon" and "Memento Mori," who participated as a judge, stressed, "The reason tools like Kling AI are welcome is that they lower the barrier to creation and return the question of 'why do humans create?' to more people."
At the awards ceremony, major submissions from the global "4K Short Film Creative Contest" were also introduced. More than 10,000 works were submitted to that competition from around the world, of which more than 200 were submitted from Korea. Korea ranked sixth worldwide in terms of the number of participants, demonstrating the strong interest of Korean creators in AI video production tools.
Kling AI is expanding its collaboration with domestic professional video production studios beyond universities. AI video production studio Studio Meta K has applied generative AI technology to the production of broadcast programs, including KBS's "History Special," MBC's "Rookie Director Kim Yeon-koung," ENA's "My Precious Star," and MBN's "Dolsingles 7." Kim Kwang-jip, CEO of Studio Meta K, said, "We will actively apply Kling AI's technological capabilities to broadcast and film production sites to raise both production efficiency and the quality of the results."
Kling AI is the AI video and image generation model of China's Kuaishou, with the number of users worldwide surpassing 100 million as of June 2026. It is provided in 224 countries and regions, with about 50,000 corporate customers. Kling AI plans to continuously expand its collaborative ecosystem in Korea, including selecting Korean institutions as first-generation officially certified partners by joining them to its global partner channel, and providing benefits such as new customer development, sales incentive rewards, and priority beta testing of new models.
