Protesters storm the site of a Microsoft data center in Amsterdam

Protesters stormed the construction site of a new Microsoft data center in Amsterdam. According to The Verge's article (by Tom Warren, dated November 6, 2026), members of the action group Geef Tegengas helped organize the protest against the construction of three 85-meter data center towers on the outskirts of the city.

Citing Reuters, the article says about 100 people managed to get onto the site. Some climbed a crane to hang a banner with an anti-AI message. They also unfurled another banner accusing Microsoft of contributing to genocide, and chanted slogans against the company and in support of Palestine.

The regulatory context is relevant. The opposition comes more than a year after the city banned new data centers until 2030, following a temporary moratorium announced in late 2023. However, Microsoft will be the sole tenant of this complex, and the project is going ahead because it had been planned since 2016, before the ban. The developer, UK-based Pure Data Centres, has also managed to navigate some regulatory loopholes to reach the construction phase.

The piece places the protest within a wave of European opposition to data centers. That same week, activists set up a mock Israeli military checkpoint outside a Microsoft data center in Dublin. The article adds that earlier that week, U.S. voters rejected unchecked development of these facilities, and that AI data centers continue to proliferate in the country, often facing opposition from residents concerned about their local impact.

Microsoft also pulled out of the UK's largest data center project the previous month, according to the article, after local grid operators said the site would not have power until the 2030s.

Finally, the article notes that the company has faced protests from current and former employees over the past year over the use of its technology in Israel's war against Hamas. These include the disruption of its 50th anniversary event, where an employee called Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman a "war profiteer," and the disruption of Satya Nadella's keynote at the previous year's Build conference. Months later, Microsoft fired two employees who had occupied its president's office.