Inside Meta’s push to put robots to work in data centers

Two sources also describe the inventory bot as too slow. One says Meta previously explored using drones as a faster alternative, but ultimately didn’t pursue the idea.

Inside the Testbed

The Altoona data center campus is often where Meta prototypes new technologies. “What they do here in Altoona, they take to their other sites and put that in place there,” says O’Connor.

Since last June, Meta has been trying out a pair of dual-armed Watney robots for some cabling work at one of its Altoona buildings, according to one of the people familiar with the company’s efforts. The robots are supervised by humans and can’t work as fast as people yet, but they show promise.

After Watney launched in 2023, it put out a demo of a laundry-folding robot that it claimed could also handle janitorial work inside businesses. The San Francisco startup quietly pivoted to data center robots early last year, according to archived copies of its website.

Meta is testing additional robots in New Albany, Ohio, at the company’s newest data center campus known as Prometheus. Four-wheel robots “with a scissor-lift-style riser and a six-axis arm on top” made by the automation giant ABB are being used there to reseat parts and, eventually, they may take on other tasks with diminishing human oversight, a person familiar with the product says.

But the idea that robots will prevail over humans isn’t guaranteed. “There’s been a lot of pilots and demos, but no provable working solution,” says Helen Oleynikova, CEO of Exclaim Robotics, which is developing prototypes to replace broken parts and reset cables in data centers.

At Meta’s data centers, some workers have complained about the amount of downtime the robots need to recharge their batteries, according to the people familiar with the matter. Meta has also acknowledged internally that robots aren’t equipped for certain tasks, such as the intense cabling work required to run an Nvidia GB300 supercomputer. “Things have been designed for human hands forever to make everything a five-minute repair,” says one former Meta employee. “Redesigning everything will take time.” But the robots are getting prepared.

This story originally appeared at wired.com.