Meta Tests Robots From Kinova, ABB, and Watney to Automate Data Center Tasks

Meta is piloting robots from Kinova, ABB, and Watney Robotics inside its data centers to take on tasks now handled by technicians, according to Wired, citing current and former Meta workers. Trials include a Kinova Gen3 robotic arm for power cycling servers and a separate robot for swapping networking cables; a simpler finger-like device remotely presses power buttons on Mac Minis to restart them. One worker estimates the tested systems could eventually replace up to 80 percent of some technicians' workloads. Meta declined to comment on the specific testing; a spokesperson said the company is investing in hiring and training data center staff given a skilled-labor shortage, while robotics lead Eric Xu has said publicly that cutting incident-response and maintenance labor is a long-term goal.

The test shows AI infrastructure operators starting to treat data center labor, not just power and chips, as a cost variable as buildout accelerates. Server maintenance was long seen as too delicate for robots — earlier industry attempts reportedly crushed equipment — but cheaper hardware and more capable robot-control models have made the tasks workable. Running this alongside Meta's soaring AI infrastructure spending shows physical automation becoming an adjacent lever to model and chip economics for hyperscalers expanding capacity while containing headcount growth.

For robotics vendors, data center maintenance is emerging as a concrete commercial use case distinct from warehouse or manufacturing robotics, and multiple startups are reportedly building competing server-assembly and part-swapping products. For Meta's technicians, the shift raises near-term job risk and could support centralizing lower-skilled, lower-paid roles in hubs like Denver — a labor-cost dynamic worth tracking as a quieter offset to rising compute and power spend across the AI buildout.