LG CNS Concludes 'Optimization Grand Challenge 2026,' Pitting Solutions to Shipbuilding's Toughest Problems
TECHWORLD ·
✦ AI Summary
LG CNS, together with the Korea Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering, held the 'Optimization Grand Challenge 2026' and hosted an awards ceremony on the 20th.
This year's competition drew 958 teams from 55 countries, and participants worked on the task of optimizing shipyard block placement.
The grand prize went to a team from Japan, and LG CNS awarded a total of KRW 200 million in prize money to 20 teams.
LG CNS, co-hosting the 'Optimization Grand Challenge 2026' with the Korea Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering, said it has wrapped up the event and will hold an awards ceremony on the 20th. The competition is a contest in which participants pit mathematical optimization algorithms against complex problems from industrial sites.
Mathematical optimization is a technology that searches through possible combinations within given resources and conditions to find the most efficient solution. It is used as a foundational technology for next-generation industries such as AI, quantum computing and robotics.
This year's competition drew 958 teams from 55 countries. That was about 2.8 times larger than last year's 343 teams. The number of participants also more than doubled from 676 to 1,448.
Among the overseas universities that took part were Carnegie Mellon University, Imperial College London, Stanford University and the University of Tokyo, while domestic universities included Seoul National University, KAIST and POSTECH. Industry experts from Accenture, IBM, Samsung Electronics and Hyundai Motor also participated.
This year's task was to optimize block placement at a shipyard. Teams were asked to develop algorithms to determine the location, orientation and placement timing of hundreds of blocks that make up ultra-large ships inside the workshop. The goal was to improve space utilization and meet delivery deadlines. However, because each block differs in size and shape and because there are process-sequence constraints requiring the next process to begin only after the previous one ends, the problem is highly difficult even in actual shipbuilding operations.
The competition proceeded by having participating teams submit algorithms, after which a scoring system calculated the results and displayed them in real time on a leaderboard. Through this process, the top 6 teams that advanced through the preliminaries and main rounds reached the domestic final.
At the domestic final, teams presented their algorithms and problem-solving approaches. The final rankings were determined by the judging panel based on a comprehensive evaluation of algorithm performance and presentation content.
In the end, the grand prize went to a team from Japan. LG CNS awarded a total of KRW 200 million in prize money to 20 teams, including the grand prize winner. LG CNS also plans to release the algorithm code submitted by the top 10 teams as open source.
Through the competition, LG CNS is promoting broader adoption of mathematical optimization technology while continuing to apply it to industrial sites. The company said it has carried out projects across a range of sectors, including shipbuilding, defense, steel, logistics, manufacturing, finance, telecommunications, transportation and aviation, and that the cumulative number of projects completed has exceeded 200.
As one such accumulated case, LG CNS carried out a project for a major domestic manufacturer. In that project, it adjusted production plans for indoor and outdoor units, cutting warehouse transit inventory by 57%, and LG CNS said the effort delivered cost savings worth hundreds of millions of won.
Park Sang-gyun, executive vice president and head of LG CNS's Entrue division, said finding the highest efficiency from limited resources is complex and highly difficult, but can be solved through mathematical optimization. He added that the company will continue expanding the competition and push ahead with broadening the horizon of optimization technology together with talent from around the world.
Source: TECHWORLD · Kim Seung-gi
Original: https://www.epnc.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=407168
References
This article was produced with the help of an automated content generation algorithm.
Source: TECHWORLD
View originalThis article was summarized and organized by BizCrush based on the original article from TECHWORLD. For exact quotations and full details, please refer to the original article.