Protesters break into Microsoft data center site in Amsterdam

Protesters broke into a construction site for a new Microsoft data center in Amsterdam, with around 100 people entering the site, according to Reuters. Members of the Geef Tegengas group helped organize the demonstration against three planned 85-meter data center towers on the outskirts of the city. Some protesters scaled a crane to display a "fuck AI" banner, while others unfurled a "Microsoft powers genocide" banner and chanted "Microsoft has got to go" and "free Palestine." The opposition comes more than a year after Amsterdam banned new data centers until 2030, though this project was planned as far back as 2016, before the ban, and is being built by British developer Pure Data Centres, which navigated loopholes to reach construction. The protest is part of a wave of data center demonstrations across Europe, including a mock Israeli military checkpoint outside a Microsoft data center in Dublin earlier this week. Microsoft has also faced employee protests over its technologies' use in Israel's war against Hamas, and last month abandoned the UK's largest data center project after grid officials said the site would not receive power until the 2030s.

(Source：The Verge)