Meta Tests Robots to Automate Data Center Maintenance

Meta is actively trialing robotic hardware from vendors like Kinova, ABB, and Watney Robotics to automate server maintenance. At its Altoona, Iowa facility, which opened in 2014, the company has been testing a pair of dual-armed Watney robots for cabling work since last June. In New Albany, Ohio, at its Prometheus campus, Meta is deploying four-wheeled ABB robots equipped with a scissor-lift riser and a six-axis arm to reseat hardware components. Additionally, the company is evaluating the Kinova Gen3 robotic arm for power cycling servers, alongside a simpler finger-like device designed to physically restart Mac Minis.

These trials build on Meta's existing fleet, which includes an in-house wheeled inventory robot and a self-driving tugger robot operating in Virginia and Iowa. While these machines track inventory and transport heavy server racks, they face notable limitations. The inventory robot's grayscale camera cannot distinguish between red and green status lights, and it struggles to navigate corners or floor cables. Furthermore, current robots lack the dexterity required for the complex cabling demands of advanced systems like the Nvidia GB300 supercomputer, and they require significant downtime to recharge.

For data center practitioners, this automation push threatens to fundamentally alter the nature of IT support roles. One worker estimated that successful automation could replace up to 80 percent of certain physical workloads. Technicians worry that Meta's long-term strategy involves using AI software to guide lower-skilled, lower-paid workers as "smart hands" rather than employing independent troubleshooters. While Meta spokesperson Francis Brennan emphasized that the company is investing heavily in training programs to address a skilled labor shortage, the transition suggests a future where human roles are increasingly centralized or simplified.

Meta is not alone in this pursuit; Microsoft, Google, and Amazon are also exploring robotics to recycle parts and manage infrastructure. Startups like Exclaim Robotics, led by CEO Helen Oleynikova, are similarly developing prototypes to replace broken components. Although Oleynikova notes there is "no provable working solution" yet, the ongoing integration of capable AI models with cheaper hardware makes automated, dark data centers an increasingly plausible reality.