The technology company that owns the Dowagiac data center plans on staffing the facility with 30 humanoid robots from a Chinese manufacturer later this year.
Hyperscale Data and its subsidiary, Omnipresent Robotics, began production of the robots earlier this month as part of its broader plan to deploy 142 humanoid robots at the facility “to support the development of embodied artificial intelligence applications, autonomous workflows, and advanced robotics systems.”
The data center is facing complaints and a class action lawsuit from local residents who say the facility emits “constant noise.”
Hyperscale Data is partnering with AgiBot, a Chinese robotics manufacturer that it says is “one of the leading humanoid platforms in the world.” The company purchased 142 humanoid robots from AgiBot for $13.4 million, and Omnipresent Robotics will resell robots once trained, Data Center Dynamics reported.
“We are building in Michigan because Michigan still has industrial muscle memory,” Hyperscale Data Executive Chairman Milton “Todd” Ault, III, said in a note on the company’s website. “We are developing a campus where robots can be trained to perform real jobs, tested until the weak points show themselves, assembled here, and sent back into the field with software that actually fits the work. That will create engineers, technicians, operators, manufacturing jobs, and a place where people learn by doing instead of talking.”
The company is planning a 100,000-square-foot “Robotics Research, Testing and Innovation Center” at the Dowagiac campus, while the initial 30 robots “will work side-by-side with AI infrastructure personnel and data center employees.”
Lawmakers have warned about national security threats posed by robotics companies aligned with the Chinese Communist Party sending their technology to the U.S., particularly from the Chinese firm Unitree, one of AgiBot’s competitors.
Bipartisan members of the House Select Committee on China warned the Trump administration in a letter last year that Unitree has “participated in military-civil fusion programs, received Peoples Republic of China state funding, contributed to defense research, and produces robotic systems with clear military utility.”
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