Ahead of the early next-year opening of "CES 2026," the world's largest home appliance and IT trade show, Korea has effectively reserved its spot as the country with the most innovation awards.
It also reaffirmed its leadership in cutting-edge technology by sweeping the top prizes in artificial intelligence (AI), now a core of national competitiveness.
According to the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), the organizer of CES, as of the 22nd, more than 370 CES Innovation Awards had been presented, and corporations from Korea won 218 of them (59%), setting a record for the most awards.
The United States and China received 52 (14.0%) and 39 (10.9%), respectively, placing second and third, and given the current margin, Korea is likely to finish first overall.
Earlier, at CES early this year, Korea also set the record for the most awards among participating countries by winning 208 Innovation Awards, nearly half of the total.
The CES Innovation Awards are given by CTA ahead of CES every January to products with outstanding technology and innovation.
Each year, more than 100 judges worldwide evaluate new products and services to determine winners, and for each institutional sector, one or two of the most outstanding corporations receive the Best of Innovation Award.
In particular, among 36 categories at this CES, Korea dominated the core trend of AI by taking all three Best of Innovation Awards in AI and captured 15 of the 30 Best of Innovation Awards overall.
CT5's wearable AI interface "John HSS1," which supports a large-scale multimodal model, and DeepFusionAI's software-defined 360-degree perception solution "RAPA" won the Best of Innovation Award in AI.
In addition, "Scan&Go," an AI-based autonomous mobile robot system jointly developed by Doosan Robotics and U.S.-based Maple Advanced Robotics, also received the Best of Innovation Award in AI.
Samsung Electronics' U.S. unit's quantum security chip "S3SSE2A" took the Best of Innovation Award in cybersecurity, and Samsung SDI's ultra-high-power 18650 cylindrical battery "SDI 25U-Power" won the Best of Innovation Award in construction and industrial technology.
LG Electronics' transparent, wireless TV "LG Signature OLED T" became the Best of Innovation Award winner in imaging.
This CES, to be held Jan. 6–9 (local time) in Las Vegas, will draw about 4,500 corporations, similar in scale to last year, and is expected to feature next-generation technology competition centered on AI.