In the United States, we usually protest datacenters peacefully - picket signs, council meeting comments, and all that - with mixed results. In the Netherlands, activists throw water balloons filled with an acidic mixture at datacenter foundations, also with questionable effectiveness. The Dutch arm of international climate activist group Extinction Rebellion claimed responsibility for an attempt to sabotage a datacenter project in Amsterdam on Thursday. The group said that they threw water balloons filled with a mixture of hydrogen peroxide, acetic acid, salt, and acrylic paint at the under-construction facility. Extinction Rebellion said the mixture is designed to degrade the concrete and accelerate corrosion of its steel reinforcement. Extinction Rebellion spokesperson Martijn Dekker justified the attack by saying datacenters and the AI they power are exacerbating the climate crisis, as well as playing a role in the killing of Palestinians by Israel. “We must join forces and resist the anti-democratic power of this small group of the very wealthiest,” Dekker said in Extinction Rebellion's press release. “Stopping the construction of this data center is a necessary step in that regard.” The facility in question is being built by UK-based Pure Data Centres Group. If and when it is eventually completed, the facility will consist of three 85-meter (279-foot) towers, each containing 26 MW of data halls, for 78 MW of total site capacity. The site has its own power substation, which is already operational, and development of the data halls started in January 2026. Pure DC says the facility is already fully leased, and while it doesn’t mention the lessee by name, local media have reported in a story about a prior protest at the site that Microsoft is the sole occupant. Amsterdam restricts new hyperscale datacenters, but Dutch media said the project's three-tower design allowed it to fall below the threshold for a single hyperscale facility. “Such data centers are superfluous,” Extinction Rebellion said. “They are mostly deployed for AI purposes, and although AI has some meaningful applications, the majority of them are undesirable: jobs are lost and the work of artists and others is shamelessly stolen to generate AI content.” With all that said, it’s still not clear what impact, if any, the attack may have had. Media in the Netherlands said that Pure DC and emergency responders had both confirmed balloons were thrown at the site, but neither said what they contained. Pure DC did tell Dutch newspaper NRC that the attack had no impact on construction, and that it intended to pursue legal action against those responsible. NRC spoke to Extinction Rebellion, which the paper said plans to carry out similar attacks on other datacenter projects. “The world is on fire, and we are building yet another data center,” an Extinction Rebellion spokesperson told NRC. “It has to stop.” We reached out to Microsoft, Pure DC, and Extinction Rebellion for comment, but didn’t hear back from anyone. ®
