Protesters enter Microsoft data center construction site in Amsterdam
Around 100 protesters entered the construction site of a new Microsoft data center on the outskirts of Amsterdam, with some climbing a crane to hang a banner reading “fuck AI,” Reuters reported. The demonstration was organized in part by the Geef Tegengas group and opposed the project.
Protesters also unfurled a banner saying “Microsoft powers genocide” and chanted “Microsoft has got to go” and “free Palestine.” The project includes three data center towers, each 85 meters tall.
Amsterdam banned new data centers until 2030 after a temporary halt announced at the end of 2023. The Microsoft project is continuing because it had been planned as far back as 2016, before the ban. Microsoft is to be the site’s sole tenant. British developer Pure Data Centres is building the facility, which has also navigated loopholes to reach the construction stage.
The Amsterdam protest came in the same week that activists staged a mock Israeli military checkpoint outside a Microsoft data center in Dublin. The action was part of a broader wave of data center protests across Europe. Earlier in the week, voters across the United States also rejected unrestrained data center development.
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