Meta is piloting the use of robots in data centers to replace network cables, reboot servers, reset components, and conduct inspections. The hardware comes from Watney Robotics, Kinova, and ABB, but human oversight is still required.

Current and former employees informed the media that since June last year, the Altoona facility in Iowa has been testing the Watney dual-arm robot for some wiring tasks; the Prometheus campus in New Albany, Ohio, uses ABB's wheeled robot with scissors lift and six-axis arm for component resetting; the Kinova Gen3 robotic arm is being evaluated for powering servers on and off. Some data centers have introduced a device resembling a finger or a stick, which is operated remotely to press the power button on devices like Mac Minis. If the cable replacement robots mature, a frontline employee estimates they could replace about 80% of the workload of certain positions, though this figure is a personal estimate rather than a company forecast, and the robots are still slower than humans. Internally, it is acknowledged that the existing robots cannot handle high-density cable bundles like the NVIDIA GB300; visual recognition, battery life, obstacles, and dense cabling remain shortcomings, and cabinets and maintenance processes are designed for human use, making modifications costly. Kinova and ABB declined to comment, Watney did not respond, and Meta refused to comment on the testing itself.

Spokesperson Francis Brennan stated that the U.S. is experiencing the largest infrastructure wave since World War II, with a severe shortage of skilled workers. "What we need is more workers, not fewer," he said, noting that the company is hiring and offering free training for electricians, mechanics, plumbers, and other trades, and is connecting graduates with contractor positions in states where it has facilities, such as Louisiana, Ohio, Indiana, and Texas. Employees are concerned that the demand for skilled technicians will decrease, leaving remaining tasks to low-wage positions operated by generated instructions. On the construction side, there are also heavy pile drivers and other site robots, which are not on the same production line as data center operations. Capital expenditure forecasts have been set at around $125 billion to $145 billion, with both data center expansion and skilled labor shortages existing simultaneously.

The pilot does not change the daily scheduling but alters the assumptions about human-machine ratios for the next facility. The 80% figure is an upper limit imagined after breaking down the skilled cable replacement into supervised repetitive actions, not an official formula for layoffs.

In market mechanisms, this is a hedge of operating costs against capital expenditures, not a robot company IPO event. The buyer is Meta, which aims to control operational costs per unit of computing power, while the sellers are suppliers of industrial arms and inspection platforms. Funding is shifting from data center OPEX to equipment depreciation and remote supervision roles. The beneficiaries are automation manufacturers that can standardize cable replacement and resetting tasks, while the burden falls on technicians who sell their skilled labor by the hour. The company publicly seeks workers while privately tests machines, with two narratives running parallel: the shortage is used to justify training academies, while the pilot is used to explain long-term staffing flexibility. The GB300 cable bundle proves that the physical layer is still designed for human hands, with robots initially handling power buttons and standard network cables, not all fault tickets.

In supplementary remarks, employees stated, "We thought those doing physical labor could still be safe for a while, but that's no longer the case."

Source: Public Information