Nikon disqualifies the winning Small World in Motion video over artificial intelligence post-processing

12 October 2026

Nikon Instruments disqualified the first-place entry in its Nikon Small World in Motion microscopy competition. The video, awarded first place on 15 September 2026, showed hair-like cilia moving in the lungs, described as a super-resolution microscopy sequence of beating airway cilia from a child with primary ciliary dyskinesia. The entrant, Ning Xu, an optical engineer at the National University of Singapore, said his team used an artificial intelligence model in post-processing to enhance the visual presentation of the regions below the cilia. Scientists raised concerns on LinkedIn days after the award, questioning some features as biologically implausible. Competition rules bar artificial-intelligence-generated videos. Nikon said on 25 September that it was investigating and announced the disqualification on 9 October 2026, stating that after re-evaluating the video and supporting materials and consulting the judging panel it found the video did not comply with the rules. Nikon said the decision concerns only the video's eligibility and not the entrant's reputation, scientific contributions or intent. A university spokesperson said Xu entered before joining the university and that the submission is unrelated to his work there.