Separate actions also take place outside fence and across Europe in backlash against impact of AI boom

Activists have stormed the site of a Microsoft datacentre being built in Amsterdam, as the backlash to the social and environmental harms of the AI boom spreads across Europe.

Protesters from Geef Tegengas, a Dutch direct action group, clashed with police while breaking into a construction site at Westpoort, Amsterdam, where some members climbed a crane, lit flares and tied helium balloons to equipment.

The action comes amid Europe-wide resistance to the rapid expansion of energy-hungry AI, with more than 100 groups involved in a two-day series of protests to demand moratoria on the construction of new datacentres.

The break-in at the Dutch site, where protesters hung banners objecting to Microsoft’s services to the Israeli military and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), was separate from the pan-European “Stop Dirty Data Centres” campaign, which targeted the same site but whose affiliated members stayed outside the perimeter fence.

Police said in a statement to NOS, a Dutch public broadcaster: “The police attempted to prevent [the occupation] and arrest protesters, but were unable to prevent it and force was used.

Protesters from both groups said police used force and teargas to dispel the activists trying to enter the construction site. Organisers and local media reported hundreds of protesters on each side of the fence.

Smaller protests took place in the centre of Bristol, in the UK, at a datacentre in Berlin, Germany, outside the Polish parliament in Warsaw and at the main square in Zagreb, Croatia.

Source link