WIM Wins Excellence Award and Popularity Award at the 2026 Chung Ju-yung Startup Competition

WIM, an AI robot controller company, won both the Excellence Award and the Popularity Award in the Global Track of the Asan Nanum Foundation's 2026 Chung Ju-yung Startup Competition, held on October 28 at COEX in Seoul. The Excellence Award carries a prize of KRW 20 million.

The Chung Ju-yung Startup Competition is one of the largest privately run startup competitions in Korea. This year 15 teams reached the finals across four tracks: Beginner, Newcomer, Climate Tech and Global. The Global Track was judged on US market potential and differentiation, market validation, and execution. The Popularity Award went to the team with the strongest support from the audience on site.

On stage, WIM presented PLEM, its robot control stack that runs AI inference and 1 ms real-time control together on a single NVIDIA Jetson, the W-RC controller, and its progress in the US market. The award follows WIM's selection to the NVIDIA Inception Grand Challenge 2026 Top 10 in September and its first-place finish at the AWS x NVIDIA AI Pitch Competition in October, making it the third stage in a month to recognize the company's technology and business.

"Being chosen by both the judges and the audience makes this one special," said WIM CEO Woojin Jun. "We will build on it by proving ourselves with US customers and revenue."

WIM aims to build a general-purpose AI robot control stack that starts with robot manipulators and extends to mobile robots and a wide range of work environments.