The largest data centers on the planet are guarded by dogs. By robot dogs

The deployment of data centers to train the artificial intelligence It is a sign of technological power, but also economic power. This year alone, the big Americans are going to let themselves more money than NASA invested to take man to the Moon. More than $670 billion between Meta, Amazon, Microsoft and Google to create gigantic data centers. And within that investment, an important part is in safety with dogs. With robot dogs, specifically.

It is the culmination of science fiction dystopia.

In short. In the age of AI, data centers are the holy grail. We are continually seeing how companies sign contracts for thousands of million dollars with NVIDIA either amd (especially with NVIDIA) to provide them with the platforms with which to train their models. It’s only part of the equation, as there is another monumental investment in power, storage, RAM, dissipation and everything necessary to make these small cities work.

Within the investment, there is security, and in BI They have published a report in which they detail that, within the budget, there are companies that are already including spending on robots that patrol both the perimeter and the internal corridors. The goal is security in every sense: patrol to detect threats, but also to identify any problems that occur with the equipment before they escalate and become something more serious.

brand dogs. In the report, two companies are pointed out: Boston Dynamics and its dog Spot (with which we were able to play a few years ago) and Ghost Robotics with your Vision 60. Since Boston Dynamicsthe company owned by hyundai For a few years now, they have told the American media that they have been visiting data centers for some time because there is great interest.

“We have seen an increase in interest in data centers in the last year, which is probably not surprising given the investment in that space,” Merry Frayne, the company’s senior director of product management, tells the outlet. For these companies, it is tremendous advertising, but also a potential customer in a “new” sector. Because it is possible that the police do not have the budget to get hold of many, but within the billions that are invested in data centers, dogs are just another sheet in the accounting excel.

‘Patrolling the center. And what is your task? Well… quite a task, really. The representative of Boston Dynamics, and other operators, point out that the dogs are not limited to acting as a “mobile surveillance camera”, but have other tasks:

• Patrol exterior perimeters to ensure that there are no problems with fences and accesses.
• Walk through server rooms, cooling rooms, and power rooms to look for anomalies such as water leaks, hot spots that may indicate a short circuit, or accumulations of moisture. Also sensors to detect gases, microphones to analyze noise and, ultimately, the sensor you want to put on it.
• Capture visual data from everything, such as analog pressure gauges or level indicators.
• Constantly, and as some robot vacuum cleaners do, map with LiDAR as they pass to see that there are no elements out of place.

Some specific centers in which they are already being tested are Novva Data Centers in Utah or Oracle at the Industry Lab in Chicago. And dogs, in addition to cameras, have all kinds of thermal sensors and even conversational interfaces based on models like ChatGPT to interact with people.

Compensate. It’s really nothing new. We have already seen robot dogs in other industrial sectors such as oil, mining or manufacturing. security forces. In China, in fact, there are deploying to assist firefighters in extreme situations or in institutesbut if in those scenarios they are seen as a tool, here they seem more like a substitute.

Because there are those who have done the math and, in a market like the American one, a couple of full-time human guards can cost about $300,000 annually. The initial cost of a Spot ranges from $175,000 to $300,000, depending on the equipment. The cost of a Vision 60 is $165,000. And, as we see, they do much more than a security guard by being full of sensors.

Frayne says, “Clients typically start to see a payback on their investment in about 18 months.” Michael Subhan, business director at Ghost Robotics, comments that “instead of having two human guards for $300,000, you can have one human guard and one robot.”

They also get tired. These robots also have their needs. They need to change batteries and install charging points and the environment must be well structured so that the routes are efficient and the sensors such as the LiDAR work well. They can climb stairs and avoid obstacles, but performance suffers in other environments and, in addition, the placement of fixed cameras and sensors in the building must be planned.

That is to say, it seems that it is not as easy as saying “I build the center however I want, buy four robodogs and it will work”, but rather that you have to plan the traditional elements and the dogs to achieve a good integration.

HUGE Market. Although we have discussed two specific cases in which these robo-guardian dogs are being tested, both Boston Dynamics and Ghost Robotics have not gone into more details. In the end, it is security, and this falls within confidentiality agreements. Boston Dynamics points out that it is an “emerging market.” And Subhan has mentioned that “in the United States alone there are 5,000 data centers and 800 to 1,000 are currently being built, so we see it as a great market for us.”

According to some estimatesthe market for robot dogs and industrial drones is currently around 500,000 units, but is expected to double by 2030, generating a market of 21 billion dollars and five trillion dollars by 2050.

Transformation. This, evidently, is one more piece of the debate that is being generated around labor replacement. Because Subhan has already commented that “the robot, obviously, does not get sick or go on vacation and things like that” (man, it would be better if someone wasn’t working 24/7), and this is where large investors and developers of data centers see added value. The executive also points out that they are not a replacement, but rather a complement to the human guard because there are still people who control the data sent by the robot.

Because, in the event of any anomaly that needs to be responded to, it is a human in the control room who answers the call. But that debate is in the room. Subhan himself mentions it and recently we have known the Samsung plans to automate its factories facing 2030 with humanoid robots controlled by a central AI.

What is clear is that robot dogs are sensors with legs, and in a data center they can be extremely useful both on the perimeter because they are located in warm areas and, above all, in the cold interiors.

Images | Boston Dynamics

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