At Meta’s Altoona, Iowa, facility, the company has been testing two dual-armed Watney robots on cabling work since June 2025. Human operators still oversee the machines, which have not yet matched technicians for speed. Workers also cited the need to recharge the robots as another constraint on their usefulness.
Cabling is one of the more difficult areas Meta is trying to automate. The company has acknowledged internally that its current robots cannot handle some of the more demanding cable work required for systems built around NVIDIA GB300 hardware. A former employee said data-center equipment and repair procedures were designed around people, making it harder to adapt existing infrastructure for robotic handling. Meta is also evaluating a Kinova Gen3 robotic arm for server power cycling. At some facilities, simpler robotic equipment can remotely press the power button on machines such as Mac Minis after receiving a human command.
At the company’s Prometheus campus in New Albany, Ohio, ABB robots are being tested for hardware reseating. Those machines use a wheeled base, a lift mechanism and a six-axis robotic arm, with additional maintenance tasks and lower levels of human oversight among the possible future goals. Those projects are less mature than Meta’s existing automation systems. The company already operates self-driving tugger robots that move heavy server racks and an internally developed wheeled robot that scans equipment and tracks inventory across multiple data centers, including sites in Iowa and Virginia.
Even those established systems still depend on people for certain jobs. Meta’s inventory robot uses a grayscale camera, preventing it from distinguishing some green and red equipment lights. Workers said it can also struggle with corners and cables on the floor. People must open doors for the machines and remotely move them between buildings.
The potential labor impact is one reason the cable trials are drawing attention. One Meta data-center worker estimated that a successful cable-swapping robot could eliminate as much as 80% of some technicians’ workloads. That figure reflects the worker’s estimate rather than a company projection.
Meta has taken a different public position on its workforce needs. The company says it faces a shortage of skilled infrastructure workers and is investing in hiring and training. It has also launched a program intended to train thousands of people each year in electrical, mechanical and plumbing trades.
Eric Xu, a senior manager for robotics at Meta, said at a conference last year that the company ultimately wants robots to help data centers respond to incidents faster, monitor operating conditions and perform preventive maintenance.
Other technology companies are pursuing similar ideas. Microsoft and Google have invested in data-center robotics, while Amazon has discussed using robots for recycling components.
For Meta, however, the current trials show that automating physical repair remains more difficult than automating movement or inspection. Robots can already transport racks and scan inventory, but the maintenance systems being tested for cabling, server resets and hardware reseating still require supervision and face practical limits that technicians do not.
This analysis is based on reporting from superpowerdaily.
Image courtesy of Meta.
This article was generated with AI assistance and reviewed for accuracy and quality.
