A group of industry giants have joined forces to create a lab aimed at improving the speed and performance of Linux.

The facility, which has received $24bn in funding, is called the Open Source Development Lab (OSDL) and includes IBM, Intel, Hewlett Packard and NEC as founding members. It also boasts 19 other member partners including Computer Associates, Fujitsu and Hitachi.

The lab will work initially on a scalability project to enable Linux to support 16 64-bit processors with near-linear performance improvement. A second project will focus on increasing the number of Linux TCP/IP concurrent connections from 20,000 to more than 64,000.

Tim Witham, OSDL lab director, said: "Anybody developing under an open source licence can use the lab on a first-come, first-served basis."

The OSDL said it does not aim to create new programmes but will instead support or accelerate the open source community's existing projects. The lab would operate as a single virtual facility for developers worldwide giving them access to a number of servers via high-speed internet connections. Additional labs are being planned this year for Europe and Asia.

Brian Behlendorf, chief technical officer at open source software specialist CollabNet, said the facility would give independent Linux and open source developers access to high-end enterprise hardware.