As AI companies continue to pour hundreds of billions of dollars into buildouts of data centers, they’re looking for ways to keep their sprawling facilities secured around the clock — without having to pay a salary or manage shift changes multiple times a day (maximizing human employment is not a priority in the AI data center business.)
As such, they’re turning to robot security guards, as Business Insider reports, especially Boston Dynamics’ popular quadruped robot dog Spot.
“I was literally at a data center this week,” senior director of product management Merry Frayne told the publication. “We’ve seen a huge, huge uptick in interest from data centers in the last year, I’d say, which is probably not surprising given the investment in that space.”
It may sound like a straightforward task, but keeping tabs on centers that can cover over an area of over 900 football fields likely isn’t simple.
Spot is commonly being deployed to patrol perimeters, according to Frayne. Customers are also using them for site mapping, monitoring construction, and industrial inspection. With the right equipment, the robot dogs can detect leaks, unusual sounds, or thermal anomalies.
Michael Subhan, chief growth officer of military contractor Ghost Robotics, also told BI that its Vision 60 robot dogs are being deployed for perimeter security or investigating suspicious packages.
“We’re not there to replace the human guard,” he said. “We sort of augment the guard.”
“There are 5,000 data centers in the US alone, 800 to a thousand new data centers being built currently,” he added. “So we see that as a large market for us.”
More on data centers: New Data Centers Will Be Powered by Human Brain Cells
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