Protesters Break Into Construction Site of Microsoft-Leased Data Centre in Amsterdam

According to Reuters, around 100 people got onto the site. Some climbed a crane and hung a banner attacking AI in expletive terms. Others unfurled a banner reading "Microsoft powers genocide" and chanted "Microsoft has got to go" and "free palestine", The Verge reported, citing the Reuters account. The activist group Geef Tegengas, whose name means "push back", helped organise the protest.

The site matters beyond Amsterdam because it is one of the few large computing projects still advancing in one of Europe's main data centre markets. Amsterdam announced a temporary halt to new data centres at the end of 2023 and later banned them until 2030. This project consists of three data centre towers, each 85 metres tall. According to The Verge, it has been planned since 2016, before the ban, and has used loopholes to reach construction. British developer Pure Data Centres is building it, and Microsoft will be the only tenant.

As AI demand grows, cloud providers are short of capacity. Grid limits and local opposition are already holding back new sites in Europe. The Verge noted that Microsoft dropped the UK's largest data centre project last month after grid officials said the site would not get power until the 2030s.

The Amsterdam project has been targeted before. In July, Extinction Rebellion activists threw balloons over the fence of a Pure DC construction site in the city's Westpoort area, where Microsoft is the expected tenant. The activists said the balloons held an acid mix meant to weaken concrete, DatacenterDynamics reported. Pure DC said it could not verify what the balloons contained and that construction had not been damaged. Geef Tegengas has also campaigned against Microsoft's existing Dutch data centres over the Israeli military's reported use of its Azure cloud.

Friday's action came days after activists set up a mock Israeli military checkpoint outside a Microsoft data centre in Dublin on Tuesday, according to The Verge. Microsoft has also faced protests from its own staff over its technology's use in Israel's war against Hamas. These included disruptions at its 50th anniversary event and at its Build developer conference. The company later fired two employees who occupied its president's office.

In the United States, voters this week backed restrictions on data centres in most of the local measures on the ballot. Hyperscalers' expansion plans now face organised opposition on both sides of the Atlantic.

The reports did not say whether work on the Amsterdam site was disrupted beyond Friday morning or whether anyone was arrested. Amsterdam's ban on new data centres runs until 2030, so projects approved before it, like this one, account for most of the new capacity the city will add this decade.