AMSTERDAM — Dutch police moved in to clear a building site in the Westpoort industrial area on Friday morning after pro-Palestinian activists occupied the premises to protest the city’s controversial plans to construct a massive data centre slated for lease to tech giant Microsoft.
The demonstration, which quickly escalated from a climate and social justice action into an intensive site occupation, drew a significant response from local law enforcement. According to reports from Dutch broadcaster NOS and media coverage by NRC, officers deployed pepper spray to control portions of the crowd and managed to clear individuals who had scaled construction cranes and the roofs of unfinished structures on the property.
The protest was originally organized by the climate and justice group Geef Tegengas and was subsequently joined by Extinction Rebellion and various other activist factions. As the morning progressed, participants breached the perimeter, storming the site and draping Palestinian flags across construction equipment and buildings. While initial confrontations between police and activists led to tense moments early in the day, authorities eventually surrounded the remaining demonstrators, allowing a sanctioned portion of the protest to continue before initiating the clearance of the occupied zones.
The focal point of the anger is a massive €1 billion, 78-megawatt campus currently under development by Pure DC. The facility is fully let to Microsoft, a company that has previously acknowledged providing cloud and computing software and infrastructure to the Israeli military. For the protesting organizations, the construction project represents a convergence of environmental degradation and geopolitical complicity, linking local municipal planning directly to international conflicts.
Critics of the project have pointed out that the development appears to circumvent a strict 20th-century national ban on hyperscale data centres enacted by the Dutch government in 2022. Rather than being registered as a single, sprawling facility that would automatically trigger regulatory prohibitions, the campus is structured on paper as three distinct, smaller data centres. This legal workaround has drawn sharp criticism from urban planners, environmentalists, and investigative journalists alike.
According to reports from the Dutch newspaper NRC, the energy demands of the planned facility are staggering. The campus is projected to consume as much electricity in a single year as the entire city of Amsterdam, raising severe concerns among local residents and climate advocates about the strain the facility will place on the national power grid and its ultimate impact on the Netherlands’ carbon emission reduction targets.
The Westpoort industrial district, situated in the western part of Amsterdam, has increasingly become a battleground over land use, energy consumption, and the rapid expansion of digital infrastructure. The Netherlands has long positioned itself as a major digital hub in Europe, attracting numerous multinational data centres due to its robust fiber-optic connections and cooling climate. However, public sentiment has shifted dramatically in recent years as citizens and local governments grapple with the immense physical footprint, water usage, and electrical demands of these facilities.
In response to the occupation and subsequent police intervention, Microsoft issued a statement acknowledging the demonstration and the strong public feelings surrounding the project.
"We understand that this project stirs up strong emotions and respect people’s right to express their opinions peacefully," Microsoft told NOS in a written statement. "However, we do not condone actions that violate the law or endanger people’s safety."
Law enforcement agencies and municipal authorities in Amsterdam have maintained a heightened presence in the Westpoort area as cleanup and security operations continue at the construction site. Further updates regarding potential arrests, property damage, and the ongoing timeline of the Pure DC development are expected from local officials in the coming days.
