Some of the people who keep Meta’s data centers running are watching robots take over parts of their jobs. The company is testing machines that plug in cables, reset servers, and handle other maintenance tasks, according to current and former workers familiar with the projects, an effort that could shrink the human workforce needed to run its sprawling AI infrastructure.
The hardware comes from several vendors, including Watney Robotics, Kinova, and ABB. Power cycling, cutting electricity to servers, is handled by a Kinova Gen3 robotic arm in one experiment. Another robot is being tested for swapping networking cables, and some facilities have adopted a finger-shaped device that presses power buttons on machines like Mac Minis when a human triggers it remotely.
Current staff figure a working machine could wipe out up to 80 percent of some job duties. The worker said the physical roles had once felt safe from automation, but that no longer seems true, adding that the shift appears unavoidable.
Meta offered no comment on the experiments, while spokesperson Francis Brennan said the company is hiring and training more staff, citing a skilled-labor shortage across the industry. But robotics senior manager Eric Xu said at a conference last year that putting robots in data centers is a long-term goal, citing faster incident response and better environment monitoring.
