GOVERNMENT

Hyundai Motor Co., South Korea's largest automaker, and its affiliate Kia Motors Corp. have adopted a Linux cluster system built by International Business Machines Corp., the world's largest computer maker, for vehicle crash simulation testing and analysis, IBM Korea said on Wednesday. By connecting a number of small computers, the cluster system helps them perform as a high-performance supercomputer, said IBM Korea, a wholly owned subsidiary of IBM. The system is expected to improve the speed of crash simulation by up to 40 percent, while saving costs compared to Unix-based hardware. In a statement, IBM Korea said the deal is expected to be a foothold for the Linux system, popular among universities and research institutes, to spread in corporate computing in South Korea. IBM Korea declined to disclose the value of the Linux cluster system.