The controversy erupted after Nikon announced the winner of its 2026 Small World In Motion contest, which awards prizes for video and images captured using powerful microscopes. The winning entry, submitted by Dr Ning Xu, purported to show tiny hair-like structures called cilia moving inside the airways of a child with a rare disease.
Other scientists quickly raised doubts. Edward Phelps, associate professor at Florida University, commented on Nikon's social media post that some structures in the video appeared to "pop in and out of existence" and that the cilia seemed to "appear from nowhere." PhD student Ian Donovan from UT Southwestern Medical Centre said the source image contained a distinctive watermark indicating it had been AI-generated. Two former competition judges also expressed concerns about the video's authenticity.
Dr Xu, who did not respond to the BBC's request for comment, posted publicly that he did not breach the contest rules. In a response to Nikon's post on LinkedIn, he wrote: "AI was not used to generate the experimental movie, the cilia, or their motion." He acknowledged that AI was used "to distinguish and visualize features in the reconstructed grayscale images." The video is artificially brightly coloured, a common practice in microscopy and permitted under the rules, typically achieved using stains and dyes on the sample itself.
Nikon issued a statement saying it did not see that any rules had been violated at this time, but confirmed it is investigating. The company said Dr Xu was "respectfully complying" with the investigation and had provided additional technical documents. A further update is expected soon.
Dr Patrick Hickey, who placed fifth in the 2026 contest, said the recognition from the award was significant for scientists who spend long hours in labs. "If you spend a lot of your time in a dark room looking down a microscope, it's really nice to be able to show people and to show the public," he told the BBC. He added that it would be unfair on other entrants if the winning video had been unfairly altered by AI, noting that the contest rules clearly prohibited generative AI and required images to be taken under a microscope.