In brief
Protests erupted on Friday and Saturday in Amsterdam, Warsaw, and Dublin as residents and environmental groups challenge the resource demands of large data centres. Highlights include more than 200 arrests in Amsterdam, demonstrations in Poland demanding a pause of permits, and a first‑ever national protest in Ireland. The events underscore tensions between AI ambitions and local resources.
On Sunday, city police said more than 200 protesters arrested at a Microsoft data centre construction site in Amsterdam were released by Saturday afternoon, a move reported by Dutch broadcaster NOS.
Street marches and site occupations swept Europe on Friday and Saturday, with residents, environmental groups, trade unions and politicians joining the "Stop Dirty Data Centres" campaign, Xinhua reported.
In Warsaw, demonstrators gathered outside parliament chanting "People First, Data Second." Residents from Piaseczno collected signatures seeking a pause in permit applications for hyperscale centres, the outlet noted.
Dublin hosted the first national protest on Saturday, with hundreds of people, community groups and opposition party representatives coming together, according to The Irish Times.
Data centres, which store and process information for services such as cloud computing and AI, consume significant resources—electricity, cooling water and land—leading to local concerns about grid strain and cost shifts.
Irish Central Statistics Office figures show data centres accounted for 23 percent of the country's metered electricity consumption in 2025, up from 5 percent in 2015, adding context to the protests.
Milos Simic, assistant professor at Serbia's University of Novi Sad, warned that concentrated electricity demand could strain power grids and potentially pass costs to ordinary consumers.
Jan Maksymak, a Warsaw protester quoted by Xinhua, said,
We call these data centres "factories," but in reality, hardly anyone works inside them, while they consume enormous amounts of water and electricity.
He further accused AI companies of profiteering from government support and shifting costs onto society, a claim echoed by protesters across cities.
Yu Xiaohua, professor at Germany's University of Goettingen, said the key issue was whether gains from technological efficiency improved local conditions, though the source did not elaborate further.
