Fences Down: Data Center Protests Hit Microsoft in Amsterdam

Amsterdam police arrested 150 to 200 protesters at a Microsoft data center construction site on suspicion of trespassing. Officers first seized tools designed for breaking into the site and let the group go on its way to protest peacefully, police said in a Facebook post. Some members then entered the construction site "with violence" anyway, forcing police to intervene.

The protest is the first of many that a coalition called Stop Dirty Data Centers has organized across Europe. Actions are planned for Dublin, Warsaw, Denmark and several other cities.

Tools, fences and a crane

Items allegedly stolen from the construction site turned up among the belongings of some protesters, and the site suffered damage and vandalism. The suspects were taken to a cell complex, where it will be decided whether they are detained longer. "All suspects will be heard afterward," police said.

The protest continued an action that started the previous Friday, when protesters breached the same Microsoft site. Pure Data Centers owns it. Protesters in Amsterdam also scaled a crane at a Microsoft data center site last week and unfurled a banner with a profanity aimed at AI.

The arrest total stands as a range, 150 to 200, rather than an exact count.

Who came to the fence

The group at the site was Fossielvrij, which opposes fossil fuels in data centers, such as the jet engines Elon Musk installed at xAI's Mississippi data center. Its action was supposed to be peaceful. Another group appears to have joined the demonstration and broken through the fences around the site.

"Gas prices are going through the roof, and new houses are being postponed because of the overcrowded power grid. Yet tech billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are building energy-guzzling, hideous data centers," Fossielvrij said on its website. "We can take back the power of Big Tech by pressing the pause button now."

A petition in London

Last Wednesday, Jamie Robins of the wildlife conservation trust Buglife brought a letter to Google's UK headquarters in Kings Cross, London. It carried details of a petition signed by almost 55,000 people, calling on Google to abandon plans for a large data center in Thurrock, 15 miles east of London.

Buglife is part of an unlikely alliance of special-interest groups. Buglife and local wildlife groups fear for an endangered plant and a rare bumblebee. Nonprofit Foxglove says the data center will emit too much pollution. The Thurrock Hammers motorcycle club wants to return to racing on the site, which holds the remnants of Arena Essex, a disused motorcycle racing stadium.

Of the 1,000 responses the public submitted to the planning authority, only one supported the project. Thurrock Council says many of those responses came from people living outside the local area.

Google says the objections are grounded in misconceptions. The company says it will achieve a net gain in biodiversity by retaining habitat and moving endangered plants to another location. It says it will offset emissions by financing new renewable energy generation.

Thurrock Council expects to rule on Google's initial planning application early next year.

Where the pushback has worked

In the US, some states have instituted permitting freezes and data center moratoria, and pro-data center candidates were heavily defeated in the midterm elections. In the UK, Foxglove won a legal challenge that forced the government to withdraw planning permission for a data center west of London.

In Finland, a Google data center site cleared around 1,300 acres of forest without an environmental impact assessment. That led to a criminal probe of Tuike Finland Oy, the Google subsidiary in charge of the site.

The protesters say they intend to make life hard for Google at every step. "These planning campaigns can go on for years," he said. "It's a war of attrition."

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Marcus Schuler

San Francisco

Editor-in-Chief and founder of Implicator.ai. Former ARD correspondent and senior broadcast journalist with 10+ years covering tech. Writes daily briefings on policy and market developments. Based in San Francisco. E-mail: editor@implicator.ai