Anti-AI protest: hundreds occupy Microsoft data centre site

On Friday, November 6, several hundred activists broke into the construction site of a Microsoft data centre in Amsterdam’s Sloterdijk district. They cut a hole in the fence, climbed over it with ladders, scaled the scaffolding and the tower crane and hung a banner against data centres and artificial intelligence. Slogans were sprayed on the concrete foundations and flares were lit from the crane.

By midday riot police entered the site. In the evening the police reported more than 150 people detained for trespassing, and the next day the Dutch broadcaster NOS wrote that more than 200 had been released. One police officer was slightly injured, and photos by the ANP agency show pepper spray being used.

The action was organised by the group Geef Tegengas, joined by Extinction Rebellion and pro-Palestinian activists, while the climate movement Fossielvrij NL rallied separately at the gate at noon. Geef Tegengas spokesperson Nathan Timmer said nobody needs the data centre and it will only serve “AI slop”, surveillance and warfare.

The campus is being built by the British firm Pure Data Centres: an investment of more than a billion euros, a 78 MW grid connection, three buildings and Microsoft as the sole tenant. Opponents cite a calculation by the newspaper NRC: the complex will use as much electricity in a year as all the households of Amsterdam. The city imposed a moratorium on new data centres and extensions of existing ones last year, but the permit for this project was granted earlier, five years ago. The national ban on hyperscalers, which applies to facilities from 70 MW and from 10 hectares, formally does not cover this 2.3 hectare plot.

Microsoft replied that it respects the right to protest peacefully but “does not condone any actions that are unlawful or that put people’s safety at risk”. The same group blocked the entrance to this site back in June.

Amsterdam was the opening act of the European Stop Dirty Data Centres campaign. According to the organisers, actions took place in 15 countries on November 6 and 7, from Ireland and the United Kingdom to Poland, Spain and Italy: a dozen people gathered in Berlin, about a hundred outside the parliament in Warsaw. For the hosting market it is a signal that new data centres in Europe now run not only into shortages of power and grid capacity, but into resistance from residents.

Source: NOS