Nikon Small World in Motion Disqualifies 2026 Winner Over Generative AI

The microscopic video of beating airway cilia that won Nikon Small World in Motion 2026 has been disqualified for breaking the competition’s rules on generative AI. Nguyen Nam Nhat’s video of a tiny roundworm and a single-celled Dileptus, originally in second place, is now the official winner.

Nikon shared the decision in an email and on its website, saying it had spent the past few weeks re-reviewing the video by Dr. Ning Xu, along with the supporting materials he submitted:

“After thoroughly re-evaluating the video and supporting materials and consulting with members of our judging panel, Nikon has determined that the winning video did not comply with the competition rules regarding generative AI,” the contest spokesperson told DIYP. “Nikon has adjusted the competition rankings on our website, www.nikonsmallworld.com, to reflect this decision.”

The Controversy

Dr. Xu’s video, proclaimed the winner in September, showed the abnormal beating of airway cilia from a child with primary ciliary dyskinesia, a rare genetic disorder. Soon after the announcement, some scientists started questioning whether the motion in the video accurately reflected how cilia move, raising the possibility that AI was involved.

Nature.com writes that Dr. Xu denied breaking the rules. He reportedly wrote on LinkedIn that “AI was not used to generate the experimental movie, the cilia, or their motion,” explaining that AI was used afterward to distinguish and color structures in the reconstructed grayscale images. The competition rules, however, clearly state that “AI-generated videos are not permitted.” At the moment of writing this, Dr. Xu’s post and his LinkdIn page are not to be found.

The same source quotes Edward Phelps, a bioengineering researcher at the University of Florida in Gainesville. He reportedly wrote on LinkedIn that “the purple structures resemble mitochondria but such a sub-epithelial structure composed of extracellular mitochondria of the same size as cell nuclei does not occur in biology.” He added that, although the blue structures resemble nuclei in appearance, they don’t behave like nuclei. “It is also unclear what the red stain is supposed to be.”

But it gets worse. As PetaPixel writes, Ian Donovan, an MD/PhD Student at UT Southwestern Medical Center, reportedly ran the video through Google Gemini. He claims that results came back with an invisible Google SynthID watermark, which means at that generative AI was used in the video, at least to some extent.

Nikon was careful to separate the ruling from the person:

“This decision is based solely on the submitted video’s eligibility under the rules outlined for this competition. It should not be interpreted as a judgment of the entrant’s professional reputation, scientific contributions, or intent.”

The company also admitted that the whole situation exposed a gap in its own process:

“Advances in imaging and artificial intelligence continue to evolve rapidly, creating new challenges for organizations across many fields. This event has shown the need for Nikon Small World and Nikon Small World in Motion to revisit rules and evaluation procedures for future competition entries.”

The New Winner

First place now goes to Nguyen Nam Nhat of Nguyen Nam OME in Chu Se, Gia Lai, Vietnam. His video, captured using differential interference contrast at 40x, follows a tiny roundworm and a single-celled Dileptus as they explore their microscopic world. No AI coloring, just a worm and a protist going about their day.

It’s a shame this happened at all, since Nikon Small World in Motion has always been about showing that the real thing is astonishing enough. In my original article, I quoted Xu saying that “Life is not a still picture. Life moves.” Fair enough. But in a contest like this one, life also has to be depicted as real as it is.

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