Look, let us be honest, NHN announced on September 8 that it has successfully wrapped up 'Next AI Network 2026 (hereinafter NAN 2026)', a recruitment-linked hackathon aimed at discovering gaming and AI talent. This particular hackathon grabbed quite a bit of attention, boasting a fierce finals competition ratio of 59 to 1. The event was backed by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Creative Content Agency, driven as part of NHN's AI-led workflow innovation strategy.

The 10 teams that made it to the finals battled it out for three days from September 4 to 6 at Play Museum, the NHN headquarters located in Pangyo, Gyeonggi Province. The participants showed relentless passion as they dived into a 48-hour development marathon starting at 3 PM on the very first day. The on-site mission required each team to build a concept by combining one material keyword, one functional keyword, and the common theme word '2026'. The judging panel consisted of a solid 15 members—6 executives from the NHN games division and 9 working-level experts across development, servers, business, and art—who comprehensively evaluated AI utilization skills, completeness, creativity, and keyword implementation.