SK Accelerates Groupwide AI Innovation, 271 Teams Join AI Hackathon
TECHWORLD ·
✦ AI Summary
SK announced on the 16th that it had wrapped up an AI hackathon for group members.
The "2026 SK AI Hackathon," organized by mySUNI, began in 2021 to solve on-site problems and discover new business ideas, marking its sixth year this year, and 271 teams took part this year.
In the final round, 'Synthos,' a team of 3 SK Innovation employees, won the grand prize with an AI agent that autonomously performs repeated experiments for new materials and raw material development.
SK announced on the 16th that it had wrapped up an AI hackathon for group members. The event, the "2026 SK AI Hackathon" organized by mySUNI, was held to solve on-site problems and discover new business ideas. SK launched the event in 2021 for groupwide AI innovation, and this year marked its sixth year.
The event was held with the aim of solving work-related challenges using AI and promoting AX (AI Transformation·AI-based transformation). SK ran the hackathon to help members turn workplace problems and business ideas into concrete AI solutions. This year, 271 teams took part.
The event was divided into the AI Solution League and the AI Idea League. The AI Solution League was run in a format in which teams of 2 to 3 people were formed after identifying on-site problems or new business ideas. In this league, participants presented working services built with AI as deliverables.
The AI Idea League targeted 735 AI use cases already being applied to work. The league was operated through a public contest and screening process. This year's event was split between the solution league, centered on actual service implementation, and the idea league, which competed existing use cases against one another.
Interest in the AI Solution League was high, with 39 member companies and 672 people participating to form 271 teams. The participating teams went through preliminaries and the main round over about a month and a half, and 10 teams that advanced through the process reached the final round.
The final round was held over 2 days, from the 14th to the 15th. The final teams gathered in one place and focused intensely on advancing their projects with the goal of improving service completeness.
The judging was handled by a panel of 5 external experts, including the heads of AI companies and university professors. The panel evaluated the teams by allocating virtual investment credits worth a total of KRW 1.5 billion per judge to promising teams.
As a result, the grand prize went to 'Synthos,' a team of 3 SK Innovation employees. Synthos submitted an AI agent that autonomously carries out everything from planning repeated experiments for new materials and raw material development to optimization.
The judges said the AI agent had strong potential to serve as the core brain of an unmanned autonomous laboratory. As a key evaluation factor, they pointed to its ability to establish a foundation for laboratory operations based on know-how accumulated during the experiment process.
mySUNI said it intended to prevent the hackathon from ending as a one-time competition. To that end, it plans to push ahead in a way that links the hackathon results with AX outcomes in actual workplaces, and it said it will review the final-round teams' solutions together with relevant business units.
Park Sang-gyu, president of mySUNI, said the participants were able to build high-quality agents and services with AI in a short time. He added that he hopes the participating members will grow into group front-runners who will lead the various AX initiatives SK Group needs in the future.
Source: TECHWORLD · Park Gyu-chan
Original: https://www.epnc.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=406986
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Source: TECHWORLD
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