Panel -- Data Center Automation with Robotics & Cybersecurity

Author: Eric Xu (Robotics Engineering Manager, Meta), Georgios Papadopoulos (Robotics System Engineer, Meta), Jay Yale (CEO, DS Automotion USA), Toby Xu (Principal Systems Architect, Microsoft), Sushma Gogula (Security Engineer, Meta) Collection: 2025 OCP Global Summit - Data Center Facility

Summary

This panel, moderated by Meta's Eric Xu, is the only dedicated data center automation forum in the industry and covers the full spectrum of physical robotics deployment in hyperscale data centers alongside the cybersecurity requirements that must accompany connected machines on the data hall floor. The OCP Data Center Automation Workstream, launched in 2023 and co-led by Meta, Microsoft, and Google, organizes automation into four domains of increasing complexity: monitoring, material movement, media management, and manipulation. Meta further categorizes its physical automation into four functions: Move (rack orchestration, inventory), Sense (asset tracking, environmental monitoring), Touch (hot swap, cable work, break-fix), and Fly (structural inspection, perimeter monitoring via drones).

Georgios Papadopoulos presents concrete robotic use cases already deployed or in development at Meta. Drones perform roof inspection (visual and thermal), power line inspection (infrared for load imbalance detection), and tank inspection (external thermal imaging revealing water levels and condensation, plus internal ROV swimming robots that inspect tanks without draining them). Mobile robots perform facility rounds -- replacing miles of daily walking with consistent sensor readings and digital twin data collection. For break-fix operations, asset scanning robots are integrated with ticketing systems to be dispatched automatically for diagnostic imaging, with R&D work underway on robotic arm intervention on racks. Future AI racks will be 2-3x heavier, making automation potentially the only safe way to move them. New tools include compact AGVs and rack depalletizers shown in live demos at the OCP Innovation Village.

Jay Yale of DS Automotion presents the modular AGV platform designed for data center rack transport. The AGV handles ORv2, ORv3, and HPR rack types through interchangeable load handling devices, detects and corrects for misaligned rack placement (+/- 2.5 inch cross error, +/- 5 degree angular error), and is equipped with multiple safety sensors for obstacle and human detection. The AGVs are UL and CE certified for US and European deployment. DS Automotion's fleet controller complies with VDA 5050, enabling a single supervisory system to manage AGVs from multiple vendors.

The cybersecurity portion, led by Toby Xu (Microsoft) and Sushma Gogula (Meta), argues that security must be embedded in automation system design from the start, not treated as an afterthought. They reference historical OT attacks (Stuxnet 2010, Triton 2017, Ukrainian Power Grid 2015, LockerGoga 2019, NotPetya 2017) to establish that while OT attacks are infrequent, their consequences are severe to catastrophic. The security framework covers six layers: hardware (supply chain verification, TPM, tamper-resistant modules, physical access controls), firmware/software (secure boot, anti-rollback, SBOM dependency scanning via NVD/CVSS/EPSS/KEV), operating systems (BitLocker, RDP controls, RTOS-specific limitations), network security (segmentation with dedicated VLANs, mutual TLS authentication, IDS/IPS, traffic monitoring), integration techniques (VPN gateways, middleware strategies, IIoT cloud connectivity via Azure IoT Edge/MQTT, fleet managers), and testing/validation (penetration testing across network, system/software, wireless, and firmware/hardware layers).