Anti-AI protesters break into Microsoft data center site in Amsterdam

Protesters bankrupt into a Microsoft data center building location on the outskirts of Amsterdam on Friday during an anti-AI demonstration.

Images on social media display activists scaling fences and congregating inner the building site. Some of them climbed a crane, unfurled a banner alongside an anti-AI message, and let off flares.

Geef Tegengas, a Dutch advocate collective, stated on social media that it organized the act and that hundreds of its supporters were blocking building of the site.

"We won't obtain Amsterdam being used for the innovation of AI slop and the facilitation of genocide," stated Geef Tegengas spokesman Roos Molenaar in a statement. "This data center is gulping up our drinking h2o to create the affluent equal richer."

Microsoft did not immediately react to a petition for comment.

The protests are the latest example of backlash against data centers, the machines that have rotate into a sign for people's fears of AI and concerns complete its ecological impact. They were a key matter in the US midterm elections and extensively rejected at the ballot box complete concerns concerning power bills, h2o use and another impacts on local communities.

In its statement, Geef Tegengas stated the Microsoft project would strain the power grid during a accommodation deficit and provision the tech business additional authority complete data and the stream of information.

The collection additionally objects to what it describes as the use of Microsoft's innovation for surveillance and armed forces operations.

A video posted on X by Dutch newsman Tom Olthof shows group hanging banners opposing the project, during a distinct display is held throughout the road.

Police feared imaginable damage to the building location from chemic use, Olthof stated in the caption.

The Amsterdam location was additionally targeted in June by Geef Tegengas activists, temporarily halting work.

This is a evolving story. Check rear for updates.