Physical AI company RLWRLD (RLWRLD) said on Thursday it signed separate memorandums of understanding with three South Korean robotics and simulation startups: PhysicsSimLab, Space AI and NdotLight.

RLWRLD plans to upgrade DexBench, a humanoid precision dexterity evaluation benchmark it is developing with Nvidia, through the collaboration.

DexBench is an open-source benchmark that assesses whether a robot can use its hands like a human to perform complex tasks in real industrial settings. It integrates with the Nvidia Isaac Lab-Arena environment. Based on 18 tasks and 80 cases, it verifies robot performance in simulations and real-world settings.

Lotte, SK Telecom, CJ Logistics, Hyosung, HL Mando, Fuji, All Nippon Airways (ANA) and Mitsui Chemicals are participating as partners.

NdotLight will use its 3D simulation-ready asset generation technology, TRINIX, to produce simulation assets needed for DexBench, including joint structures, physical properties and collision meshes. It also plans to verify alignment between virtual and real environments using RLWRLD's real testbed and robotics foundation model (RFM).

PhysicsSimLab will build a high-precision digital twin simulation environment that implements real industrial sites such as convenience stores, logistics warehouses, manufacturing lines and service shops. Synthetic robotics data generated in the simulator is also planned for use in training RLWRLD's RFM, RLDX-1, and follow-on models.

Space AI will develop tracks for handling soft and fragile objects, such as tofu, fruit and rubber parts, whose shape can change or be damaged depending on the force applied. It will build an environment to train and evaluate robots' fine force-control capabilities by reflecting contact force and material property data measured by real sensors in simulations.

RLWRLD previously released RLDX-1 as open source, and the company explained that the model recorded top-level performance in eight simulation benchmarks. It was recently selected as a World Economic Forum (WEF) 2026 Technology Pioneer.

RLWRLD CEO Joonghee Ryu (류중희) said, "For humanoids to be used at real manufacturing and logistics industrial sites, implementing sophisticated human-level dexterity is key," and added, "We will work with South Korean startups with expertise in each field to solve difficult tasks needed for global industry standards."