TL;DR Seoul’s tech event calendar peaks in June and August, almost entirely at COEX in Gangnam. For practitioners: Open Source Summit Korea + MCP Dev Summit (Aug 11–14) is the highest-signal developer week, followed by AI Summit Seoul (Aug 19–21). For industry scale: Smart Tech Korea (Jun 10–12) is the year’s largest umbrella expo with 500+ exhibitors. Korea Blockchain Week (Sep 29–Oct 1) at Walkerhill is the region’s crypto flagship. Community meetups (Dev Korea, GDG Seoul) run year-round and are free.
2026 Event Calendar
| Date | Event | Venue | Track / Focus | Scale |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 6–8 | AI Expo Korea | COEX Hall A, Gangnam | AI, ICT, IoT | Trade show |
| Jun 10–12 | Smart Tech Korea (STK) | COEX Hall A+B, Gangnam | AI/data, robotics, smart factory, XR, retail | 500+ exhibitors |
| Jun 17 | Dev Korea #9 | Seoul (TBA) | Antifragile software, networking | Meetup |
| Jun 17–19 | Metaverse Expo (MVEX) | COEX, Gangnam | XR/VR/AR, digital twins, AI | 500 exhibitors, ~50k visitors |
| Jul 22–24 | IMID Korea Display Exhibition | COEX, Gangnam | Display technology, panels, OLED | Industry |
| Aug 11–12 | Open Source Summit Korea | Seoul | Open source, Linux, cloud-native | Developer conf |
| Aug 13–14 | MCP Dev Summit Seoul | Seoul (co-located w/ OSS Korea) | Agentic AI, MCP protocol, multi-agent infra | Developer conf |
| Aug 19–21 | AI Summit Seoul & Expo | COEX Grand Ballroom + Hall B | Agentic AI, LLMs, RAG, AI+Robotics | Enterprise/startup |
| Aug 29 | UbuCon Korea × MiniDebConf | Microsoft Korea 13F, Seoul | Ubuntu, Debian, Linux community | Community conf |
| Sep 29–Oct 1 | Korea Blockchain Week (KBW) | Walkerhill Hotels, Seoul | Crypto, DeFi, RWA, Web3 | 2,000+ attendees |
Major Trade Expos
AI Expo Korea 2026 [1] — May 6–8 at COEX Hall A. Korea’s dedicated AI exhibition; pre-registration before March 31 was free, on-site entry is KRW 20,000. English-language access is limited at individual booths, but the show floor is navigable.
Smart Tech Korea (STK) 2026 [2] [3] — Jun 10–12. The 15th edition runs six co-located shows: AI & Big Data Show (Hall A, 500 exhibitors / 2,000 booths), Robot Tech Show, Smart Tech Show, Secu Tech Show, Retail & Logis Tech Show, and AI Factory Expo. Theme: “Designing the Future with AI.” Largest single-venue tech event in Seoul by exhibitor count.
Metaverse Expo (MVEX) 2026 [5] — Jun 17–19 at COEX. ~500 exhibitors, ~50,000 expected visitors. Covers XR/VR/AR, digital twins, spatial computing, and AI integration across manufacturing, healthcare, and education.
IMID Korea Display Exhibition [6] — Jul 22–24 at COEX, Gangnam. Korea’s premier display industry show — OLED, micro-LED, and automotive display tech. Industry-facing; relevant for hardware and semiconductor engineers.
AI Summit Seoul & Expo [9] — Aug 19–21 at COEX Grand Ballroom + Exhibition Hall B. 9th edition; organized by DMK Global and COEX. Focus on Agentic AI, enterprise LLM deployment, RAG, and AI+Robotics. Early bird registration open; contact lucy@dmkglobal.co.kr.
Developer Conferences
Open Source Summit Korea [7] — Aug 11–12. Linux Foundation flagship in Seoul. Two days of keynotes and breakout sessions across cloud-native, open source tooling, and community. Travel grants and scholarships available. Gold sponsors include Red Hat and OpenSearch.
MCP Dev Summit Seoul [8] — Aug 13–14, co-located with Open Source Summit Korea. Agentic AI Foundation × Linux Foundation event focused on Model Context Protocol (MCP), multi-agent orchestration, enterprise integration, and production security. Seoul’s consumer tech and gaming industry makes it a natural fit for large-scale agentic infrastructure talks.
Running Aug 11–14 back-to-back across both events is the most efficient use of time for engineers working in AI infrastructure.
UbuCon Korea × MiniDebConf Korea 2026 [10] [13] — Aug 29 at Microsoft Korea 13F. Joint Ubuntu + Debian community conference. Smaller, free, community-run. Exact schedule TBD (CFP closed June 4, 2026).
Crypto & Web3
Korea Blockchain Week (KBW) 2026 [11] [12] [17] — Sep 29–Oct 1 at Walkerhill Hotels & Resorts. Asia’s premier crypto event. Sep 29 is an invitation-only institutional forum (policymakers, financial institutions). Main conference Sep 30–Oct 1. Confirmed speakers: Arthur Hayes (Maelstrom), Balaji Srinivasan, Jeff Yan (Hyperliquid CEO), Johann Kerbrat (Robinhood Crypto SVP). Topics: RWA tokenization, L1/L2 scalability, AI × Web3, DeFi. Tickets at tickets.koreablockchainweek.com.
Community Meetups
Dev Korea [4] — English-language tech meetup series. Dev Korea #9 on June 17 (antifragile software). Free, held ~monthly. Past editions partnered with Supabase, ClickHouse, PostHog. Best option for visiting developers looking to network with Seoul’s English-speaking tech community.
GDG Seoul [16] — Google Developer Group chapter, runs local workshops and study jams. Ran “Build with AI Seoul 2026 with Google DeepMind” in May. Check the GDG page for upcoming events; cadence is roughly monthly.
Practical Notes
- COEX (513 Yeongdong-daero, Gangnam-gu) [15] is the epicenter — subway: Samseong Station (Line 2), exit 5 or 6. Three-minute walk to all halls.
- Most trade shows require pre-registration for free or reduced entry; walk-in rates are 4–5× higher.
- Language: trade show floors are primarily Korean; major developer conferences (Linux Foundation, AI Summit) run in English. Dev Korea is explicitly English-first.
- Tech clusters nearby: Gangnam/COEX for enterprise tech; Seongsu-dong for startup scene [14]; Pangyo Techno Valley (~30 min south, home to Naver, Kakao) for deep-tech.
- Peak window: mid-August (Aug 11–21) packs Open Source Summit, MCP Dev Summit, and AI Summit Seoul into 11 days — the highest-density stretch for a developer-focused visit.