--- title: "Hundreds of Protestors Bust Into Construction Site to Stop Microsoft Data Center" description: "Hundreds of protestors staged a massive demonstration outside Microsoft's unfinished data center campus in Amsterdam." date: "2026-11-06" modified: "2026-11-06" authors: - name: "Joe Wilkins" job_title: "Correspondent" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/jwilkins.md" url: "https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/protestors-microsoft-data-center-construction" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" - "Ethics" --- # Hundreds of Protestors Bust Into Construction Site to Stop Microsoft Data Center ![A protester holds a flare on the roof of a Microsoft data centre under construction above a banner reading Microsoft Powered Genocide in Amsterdam in the Netherlands on November 6, 2026.]() *Yanis Deplazes / Hans Lucas / AFP via Getty Images* Anti-AI activists in Amsterdam flooded onto an unfinished Microsoft data center campus on Friday as part of a massive demonstration against big tech. The protest, first reported in the US [by *The Verge*](), saw around 100 activists scale the site's fences and block construction, while hundreds more demonstrated against the AI industry outside. At one point, a handful of protestors even scaled a massive construction crane, lighting off smoke bombs and affixing a banner to the side declaring "fck AI." The demonstration was reportedly organized by the climate justice direction action group Geef Tegengas, a Rotterdam-based collective with a history of staging peaceful — if obviously confrontational — demonstrations against infrastructure related to fossil fuels and the [military-industrial complex](). In a [statement to *Business Insider*](), a spokesperson for the group said that Friday's demonstration was centered around [Microsoft's role]() in the ongoing genocide in Gaza and war on Iran, as well as in flooding the world with AI-generated garbage. "We won't accept Amsterdam being used for the creation of AI slop and the facilitation of genocide," Geef Tegengas spokesperson Roos Molenaar said in a statement. "This data center is gulping up our drinking water to make the rich even richer." The demonstration comes a few months after protestors with the group Extinction Rebellion [hucked balloons full of acetic acid]() at the walls of Microsoft's Amsterdam campus, in a largely symbolic protest demonstrating just how deeply the hatred against data centers and the tech industry has taken root. **More on data centers:** *[Americans Just Resoundingly Rejected AI Data Centers]()* ## Author At Futurism, I focus on the intersection of technology and power — examining the economics, history, and politics behind today’s dystopian headlines. As a writer, I’m interested in topics ranging from AI’s impact on labor to startups nobody asked for. My prior work includes bylines in Jacobin, Verso, and Blue Labyrinths. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Forbes, The Guardian, MIT Technology Review, Time, The Nation, Mother Jones, The Verge, and Wired. I grew up in Michigan, attending Central Michigan University as well as Ball State University, where I earned a master of music. I now live in Brooklyn with my girlfriend and our cat Ziti. On weekends, you can find me hunched over a cold pint arguing geopolitics with the other transplants. ### Author social links [Bluesky]() ## More - [The Military’s AI Fever Is Leading Into Disaster, Critics Say]() - [Children’s Toys Are Shipping With Adult AI Inside Them]() - [OpenAI Says It Will Let Users Add Trusted Contacts to Alert If They Experience a Mental Health Crisis While Using ChatGPT]() - [Mamdani Shuts Down NYC’s Disastrous AI Chatbot]() - [TikTok Accounts Are Using AI Slop to Sell Seeds to Plants That Don’t Exist]() - [Police Admit AI Surveillance Panopticon Still Has Issues With “Some Demographic Groups”]() - [A Startling Proportion of Teens Now Prefer Talking to AI Over a Real Person]() - [Judge Horrified as Lawyers Submit Evidence in Court That Was Faked With AI]()