From drives to accelerators: Google tests data center maintenance robots

Google has begun testing robots to manage and maintain equipment in its data centers. According to Datacenter Dynamics, citing Rick Miller from Data Center Frontier, a Google representative released the relevant information during the recent Open Compute Summit event – robots are already operating at one of the facilities.

Google said that robots will help radically reconsider the approach to scaling operations, and their implementation will have a beneficial effect on the safety and reliability of work. Robotics can play an important role in tasks such as moving components and racks, monitoring equipment, and even maintaining and repairing equipment. Last year, the company began experimenting with using robots to replace failed drives. And now the company intends to involve robots in servicing racks with accelerators, which are significantly heavier than traditional racks.

Image source: Google/OCP

The use of robots to power data centers has long been considered by hyperscalers and colocation providers. However, in most cases we are talking about robotic dogs like the models produced by Boston Dynamics, Unitree Go1 and Anybotics. Such models usually perform mainly patrol functions – for protection and notification of incidents. So far, Google is using a fairly massive, autonomously moving platform of its own design.

In 2023, Microsoft created a team dedicated to automating the work of data centers in general and robots in particular. That same year, Digital Edge, Digital Realty, Scala Data Centers, and Oracle tested robots to perform a variety of data center operations. But the Japanese NTT Data has a different approach – the company created the Ugo robot on a motorized platform, which received two robotic manipulator arms.