Global Economic Times

CES 2026 Concludes: Integrated Korea Pavilion Proves AI Competitiveness, Drawing Global Cooperation and Investment Interest: KO YONG-CHUL Reporter / Updated : 2026-01-13 06:47:30

| Integrated Korea Pavilion at CES 2026, held in Las Vegas from January 6 to 9. (c) KOTRA

CES, the world's largest competition for innovative technology held under the theme "Innovators Show Up," drew global attention for four days before closing on January 9. AI technology, the most anticipated field even before the opening, moved beyond Generative AI to showcase the implementation of Agentic AI—where AI judges and acts independently—and Physical AI, which serves as the brain for hardware like robotics. This signaled that the future of AI application in daily life is just around the corner.

The Integrated Korea Pavilion, organized by 38 organizations including the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE, Minister Kim Jung-kwan) and the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA, President Kang Kyung-sung), featured a record-breaking 470 participating companies. In total, approximately 1,000 Korean companies set up booths across CES to showcase their new technologies.

Following the addition of ▲Construction/Industrial Tech, ▲Beauty Tech, and ▲Fashion/Pet Tech in 2025, CES organizers further expanded the exhibition fields in 2026 to include ▲EduTech, ▲Tourism, ▲Logistics/Supply Chain, and ▲Film. The event is evolving beyond a consumer electronics and ICT exhibition into a total B2B solution fair powered by AI.

In line with this trend, AI (21%) accounted for the largest share of the Integrated Korea Pavilion's exhibition areas, followed by Digital Health (16%), Smart City/Smart Home (11%), Sustainability/Energy (10%), and Mobility (9%). However, AI remained the core theme across all these sectors. Within the Integrated Korea Pavilion, 102 out of the 470 participating companies represented new CES exhibition categories such as EduTech and Beauty Tech, demonstrating the expansion of AI integration into other industries.

Representatives from global companies attending CES also showed keen interest in technological and investment cooperation while touring the Integrated Korea Pavilion. The Consumer Technology Association (CTA), the organizer of CES, presented "Innovation Density" as the keyword for Korea at CES 2026. They evaluated that "Korean participants showcased an innovation value chain—from R&D to verification and commercialization—all in one glance on the exhibition floor." Indeed, innovative companies in the AI, mobility, and digital health sectors within the Integrated Korea Pavilion caught the eye of buyers by demonstrating the process of how basic research ideas evolve through applied deep-tech into commercialized products.

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