Greenhouse Operation AI Agent “MESH” Wins Concept Award on the Global Horticulture Stage

MANNA CEA Co., Ltd. (MANNA CEA, CEO Tae-byung Jeon) won the Concept Award at the GreenTech Innovation Awards 2026, held during GreenTech Amsterdam 2026 at RAI Amsterdam in the Netherlands. This marks the first time a South Korean company has received an award at the GreenTech Amsterdam Innovation Awards.

GreenTech Amsterdam is one of the world’s leading exhibitions for controlled environment agriculture and horticultural technology, bringing together major companies and experts from across the global industry. The event has long served as a key stage for global greenhouse control and automation leaders such as Priva, Hoogendoorn Growth Management, and Ridder, showcasing core technologies shaping the future of protected horticulture, including greenhouse control, cultivation technology, energy efficiency, robotics, and artificial intelligence. Through this award, MANNA CEA has demonstrated the competitiveness of South Korea’s agricultural AI technology on the same global stage as leading international companies.

This year’s GreenTech Innovation Awards selected winners in three categories: Innovation, Concept, and Impact. The 2026 winners were MANNA CEA for the Concept Award, Sensie for the Innovation Award, and PATS for the newly established Impact Award. MANNA CEA received the Concept Award for “MESH: AI Greenhouse Automation & Management.” Sensie won the Innovation Award for its wearable sensing technology that supports cultivation strategies based on plant bio-signals and environmental data. PATS received the Impact Award for enhancing the practical application of biological pest control through its pest monitoring and prediction solution.

The Concept Award recognizes technologies with strong potential for future market entry and scalability. The award-winning MESH is a greenhouse operation AI Agent that combines BLE Mesh-based communication, equipment-level modules, and edge intelligence. Unlike conventional integrated systems, MESH is designed so growers can start by adopting only the functions they need and then expand step by step according to their cultivation environment and operational scale.

The jury paid particular attention to MESH as a scalable AI infrastructure that makes advanced greenhouse operation technology more realistically accessible to a wider range of growers. They highly evaluated its applicability not only to large-scale high-tech greenhouses but also to existing greenhouses and diverse cultivation environments, its practicality in contributing to improved productivity and reduced use of resources such as water and energy, and its potential to evolve into Physical AI.

MESH operates based on a distributed hardware structure connected to individual greenhouse equipment. Without requiring a large-scale central controller or complex wiring work, MESH enables greenhouse equipment to be connected and controlled more flexibly. By integrating and analyzing environmental data and equipment operation information, it goes beyond simple monitoring to support cultivation decision-making and execution. Based on the performance validation of its proprietary AI Engine and field demonstrations, MANNA CEA is advancing MESH into a Physical AI-based agricultural infrastructure that enables greenhouses to make decisions and operate autonomously.

“This award confirms that South Korea’s agricultural AI technology has strong competitiveness in the global controlled environment agriculture market,” said Tae-byung Jeon, CEO of MANNA CEA. “Starting with MESH, we aim to create a turning point where AI Agents and Physical AI are introduced into the greenhouse as a physical production site.”

Based in Jincheon, Chungcheongbuk-do, MANNA CEA has been operating its own farms while developing smart farming technologies. Drawing on data and operational experience accumulated in real cultivation environments, the company is developing AI-based greenhouse operation technologies that growers can practically adopt and scale. With its recognition at GreenTech Amsterdam 2026, MANNA CEA plans to accelerate its expansion into the global controlled environment agriculture market.