Sunnyvale, Calif. - HP (NYSE: HPQ), Intel (NASD: INTC) and Yahoo (NASD: YHOO) said on Tuesday that they have partnered to create an open source test bed aimed at advancing cloud computing research and education.

The companies said that the project will provide a large-scale testing environment designed to encourage research on the software, data center management and hardware issues associated with cloud computing.

Other partners in the project include the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA), the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Germany.

The test bed initially will consist of six "centers of excellence" -- each hosting a cloud computing infrastructure, largely based on HP's hardware and Intel's processors.

The locations are expected to be fully operational and made accessible to researchers through a selection process later this year.

"To realize the full potential of cloud computing, the technology industry must think about the cloud as a platform for creating new services and experiences," said Prith Banerjee, the senior vice president of research at HP and director of HP Labs.

"This requires an entirely new approach to the way we design, deploy and manage cloud infrastructure and services."

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