Ministry launches Smart Construction Challenge to cut site accidents with AI, robots

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport announced it will launch the 2026 Smart Construction Challenge starting Monday.

Now in its seventh year, the Smart Construction Challenge is a competition designed to harness advanced technologies — including AI and robotics — to reduce accidents at construction sites and improve the quality of housing, road and rail services. Any company, institution or individual with an interest in smart construction technology is eligible to participate. The ministry is co-hosting the event with five public institutions: the Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology, Korea Land and Housing Corp. (LH), Korea Expressway Corp., National Railway Network Authority and Korea Infrastructure Safety Corp. The co-hosts will support the field application and commercialization of standout technologies.

Prize money totaling 300 million won (about $196,000) will be awarded across categories, including one top innovation prize and three public institution head awards per field.

The safety management category will seek ideas that apply smart safety technology to sharply reduce falls, crush injuries and other accidents at construction and facility maintenance sites. The complex and housing category will focus on AI-based smart construction technologies that boost productivity while ensuring quality and safety.

The road category will select smart AI technologies that improve productivity and safety across the full design-construction-maintenance lifecycle, going beyond any single phase of construction. The railway category will identify smart construction technologies tailored to the rail sector — covering safety, AI, building information modeling (BIM) and robotics — while the BIM category will hold a competition under the theme "BIM to AI: New Possibilities for BIM in the Age of Generative AI."

Technologies that win the top innovation prize will receive broad support to help bring them to market, including bonus points in the Smart Construction Strong SME selection process, priority access to field technology demonstration programs and assistance opening sales channels with public institutions. To intensively support high-potential smart construction companies, the ministry has been recruiting up to 20 firms a year since 2023.

Winning technologies will be exhibited at the 2026 Smart Construction EXPO, scheduled for Nov. 25-27 at KINTEX in Ilsan, where they will be introduced to industry professionals and the general public.

Companies wishing to enter the Smart Construction Challenge may download the application form from the competition's official website starting Monday and submit it by email before July 14.

Kim Myeong-jun, the ministry's director general for technology and safety policy, said the arrival of the generative AI era makes technological innovation and structural reform in the construction industry more urgent than ever. "We hope that companies, institutions and experts with creative ideas to lead a great transformation in the construction industry will take a keen interest and participate in this challenge," he said.

Meanwhile, domestic contractors are rapidly shifting toward smart construction, integrating AI across design, construction and maintenance to improve productivity and safety.