Inside Facebook's new mad science laboratory, home to massive steel-cutting waterjets that even Zuck can't use

Matt Weinberger/Business Insider

Facebook CEO and all-around wunderkind Mark Zuckerberg can do a lot of things.

But Zuck can't use the steel-cutting, 60,000 PSI waterjets in Area 404 — Facebook's brand new, 22,000 square foot hardware laboratory — because he's not one of the ten or so Facebook employees authorized to even get in the room with them, for safety reasons.

The big idea behind Area 404 is to provide one big space for all of the social network's various teams, including the still-very-mysterious denizens of Building 8, to apply the "Move Fast and Break Things" philosophy to making real physical objects, not just software. 

Rather than rely on outside contractors and far-off factories to build their stuff, with Area 404, Facebook now has the facilities, including those serious-business waterjets, to prototype and build that hardware in-house. Better yet, it's tucked into a concrete-reinforced bunker nestled right in Facebook's main Silicon Valley campus.

That's important, as Facebook moves beyond its ongoing efforts to build better servers for itself and into making 3D virtual reality cameras, flying internet-laser drones, and the experimental Terragraph high-speed wireless internet system.

It also means that Area 404 is going to be the place where the first versions of Facebook's coolest, craziest, and most world-changing inventions will be made. Once fully operational, the stuff that goes on in Area 404 will be above top secret.

Luckily for us, Facebook let us tour Area 404 ahead of its official grand opening. Here's a look at the high-tech lab Facebook is using to design its engines of world domination.

Facebook's main business may be social networking space, but it's long since been designing custom hardware in-house. Since the early 2010's, Facebook has been designing its own custom servers just to keep up with demand...

More recently, Facebook has been working on projects like the Aquila drone, designed to shoot lasers that bring internet access to rural areas...

...and the Facebook Surround 360 camera, designed to shoot super-high-resolution video for virtual reality.