Slow weekend in Second Life? Why not head over to the Virtual Green Data Center (VGDC) at IBM's Virtual Business Center Island?

VGDC is part of IBM's Project Big Green, a $1 billion a year effort to explore and develop energy efficient and sustainable technologies for the data center. And they've decided to showcase their green technologies in an interactive facility in Second Life's virtual playground.

Through the use of avatars, visitors are able to explore the green data center by taking a self-guided, individual, or group tour. The VGDC is available 24 hours a day and, with IBM's Virtual Business Center staffed by live multi-lingual sales avatars five days a week, it is very easy for visitors to get the information and answers they need.

Part of IBM's Roadmap to a Green Data Center, the VGDC enables clients to get the experience of walking through a data center, without the travel costs associated with a physical visit. In addition, this opens up the doors of a data center to a larger audience who, due to security or other restrictions, might never be able to enter a real IBM data center.

In somewhat related green news, IBM has come up with a way to produce 22nm chips. Just imagine how energy efficient those will be.