Reuters posted this headline on X at 10:51 UTC on 6 November with a link to a live video broadcast. The piece uses Reuters’ report, including its witness’s count of around 100 people on the construction site, as the lead source.
Reuters reported on Friday, 6 November, that protesters broke into a Microsoft data centre site on the outskirts of Amsterdam during a demonstration against the facility. Around 100 people made it onto the construction site, a Reuters witness saw. Reuters posted the story on X at 10:51 UTC under the headline “Protesters break into Microsoft data center site in Amsterdam”.
The site is on the Plimsollweg in the Sloterdijk area, the Dutch broadcaster NOS reported. Permits there cover three data-centre towers that the signatories of a December 2025 letter put at 100 MW in total, the magazine Binnenlands Bestuur reported in March. That is 1.43 times the 70 MW line in the Dutch national hyperscale rule, by our arithmetic, but the province says the towers are not a hyperscaler under that rule.
Business Pill · Who Pays for the Grid
A short explainer on who pays for the grid upgrades that data centres need. It teaches the general idea only and does not discuss this story.
The key insight: As we read it, the Plimsollweg towers clear the 70 MW power line in the Dutch hyperscale rule on the signatories’ 100 MW figure, 1.43 times that line by our arithmetic, but not its ten-hectare land test, which is why the province says the rule does not apply. On 6 November around 100 people entered the site, a Reuters witness saw.
What Happened, as Reported
Accounts of the morning came from reporters on the scene. A news-agency report carried by the Reformatorisch Dagblad said about a hundred activists tried to reach the construction site on Friday morning. It named the action group Geef Tegengas as the organiser and said the group wants construction of the data centre stopped.
The same report said police contained the group at 11:00 local time (10:00 UTC) on the Basisweg, and that police and riot police used batons to hold activists back. Around 11:15 local time (10:15 UTC) the mayor banned the demonstration, and demonstrators then tried to break through the police line, it said.
NOS reported that several dozen demonstrators clashed with police at the end of the morning, ahead of a protest by the group Fossielvrij NL due to start around 12:00 local time. Footage showed the demonstrators breaking through the fences around the plot where the data centre is to be built, NOS said. They were contained by police and then moved on, and the group chanted pro-Palestinian slogans, it reported. NOS reporter Danny Simons counted about thirty police vans: “Er staan volgens hem zo’n dertig politiebusjes.”
The Amsterdam broadcaster AT5 reported several arrests: “Er zijn meerdere aanhoudingen verricht en de Mobiele Eenheid is met meerdere busjes aanwezig.” That translates as: several arrests have been made and the riot police unit is present with several vans. AT5 did not give a number.
Grid power in megawatts for two Amsterdam data-centre campuses against the 70 MW line in the Dutch national hyperscale rule, which also requires more than ten hectares. Binnenlands Bestuur, 6 March 2026, as reported; the Plimsollweg figure is the one cited by the signatories of a December 2025 letter. The province says the Plimsollweg towers cover under ten hectares.
The Site and Its Permits
The plot is on the Plimsollweg in the Westpoort port area, not far from Sloterdijk station, and the data centre to be built there is leased by Microsoft, Binnenlands Bestuur reported on 6 March. It is being developed by the British company Pure DC and is to have one user. Pure DC says it bought the land for the three 85-metre towers from the Port of Amsterdam, whose only shareholder is the municipality, the magazine reported.
The 100 MW figure comes from a letter sent in December to the province of North Holland and the city by a group of signatories, including Critical Infrastructure Lab. They argued that the towers would together form one hyperscale data centre and would use as much electricity as all Amsterdam households combined, Binnenlands Bestuur reported. That comparison is the signatories’ claim; we have not checked it.
The Rule the Site Sits Under
Since 1 January 2024, new large data centres in the Netherlands have been allowed only at the Eemshaven in Groningen and at Agriport A7 in the North Holland municipality of Hollands Kroon, Binnenlands Bestuur reported. The rule defines a hyperscale data centre as one covering more than ten hectares with a grid connection of 70 MW or more.
The province of North Holland first said that three separate permits had been requested for the towers, which led to reports that the ban had been sidestepped. It then corrected that, the magazine reported: the towers cover less than ten hectares, so the site is not a hyperscaler under the rule.
When Amsterdam discussed its own local ban on all data centres in 2025, six permits already in progress could no longer be stopped, and the Plimsollweg “was daar รฉรฉn van” (was one of them), Binnenlands Bestuur reported. On the split-permit claim, Amsterdam alderman Steven van Weyenberg said during a council debate: “Sterker nog, het was gewoon รฉรฉn vergunningaanvraag”, which translates as: in fact, it was simply one permit application.
Van Weyenberg wants talks with the national government so that the city can decide who runs data centres and in what form, and the council passed a motion to that effect, Binnenlands Bestuur reported.
Microsoft’s Own Dutch Footprint
Microsoft’s October 2025 fact sheet on its Dutch data centres says: “We currently operate datacenters in Middenmeer, Hollands Kroon.” It says those facilities employ approximately 400 people, and that since 2018 Microsoft has contributed nearly USD 7 million to support communities across the region. The data-centre sites it lists are in Middenmeer; it does not list a data-centre site in Amsterdam, where it mentions a training partner and the Microsoft Circular Center that processes decommissioned servers.
Hollands Kroon is the municipality of Agriport A7, one of the two places where the national rule still allows new hyperscale sites, according to Binnenlands Bestuur. Amsterdam is not one of them.
Not the First Action at the Site
Dozens of activists occupied and blocked the construction site in June, the news-agency report said, and Extinction Rebellion joined the campaign with a night-time action. NOS reported that demonstrations against new data centres were taking place in several places in Europe on 6 and 7 November.
Update, 6 Nov, 18:08 UTC: Bloomberg says more actions are planned across Europe. Bloomberg, in a post on X at 17:30 UTC, described the break-in as “part of wider coordinated action planned across Europe against such facilities through the weekend.” Its post put the number at “More than 100 protesters”. We did not find an organisers’ list of other targeted sites, and we have not read Bloomberg’s full article.
Update, 6 Nov, 22:53 UTC: Microsoft responds; protests listed in 15 countries.Microsoft said it was aware of the Amsterdam demonstration, according to a wire report carried by The Globe and Mail: “We understand that people feel strongly about the project, and we respect their right to express those views peacefully,” a spokesperson said. “However, we do not condone any actions that are unlawful or that put people’s safety at risk.”
The same report says dozens of civil society and grassroots groups said they would join the “Stop Dirty Data Centres” events on 6 and 7 November in 15 European countries, including Ireland, Poland, Denmark, Finland, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, France and the UK, according to organisers, and that a dozen protesters gathered in front of a data centre on the outskirts of Berlin on Friday. Reuters also reported the Amsterdam break-in on X at 22:35 UTC; we could not open its article.
As we read the rule, it has two parts, power and land, and Binnenlands Bestuur reported that it explicitly allowed for data centres built upwards that cover less ground while drawing hyperscale-like power.
As we read the week, the backlash against data centres took two forms: limits on US ballots, which led 40 of 41 votes on unofficial counts in our earlier piece, and a protest at a construction site in Amsterdam whose permit, Binnenlands Bestuur reported, could no longer be stopped.
As we read Microsoft’s position, its own fact sheet lists its operating Dutch data centres in Middenmeer, in Hollands Kroon, while the Amsterdam towers are being developed by Pure DC and leased by Microsoft, Binnenlands Bestuur reported.
NOS, 6 November 2026 (Dutch; it says protests against new data centres are taking place today and tomorrow in several places in Europe)
“Op meerdere plekken in Europa wordt vandaag en morgen gedemonstreerd tegen de komst van datacenters.”
Three Implications
FOR MICROSOFT Its October 2025 fact sheet lists operating Dutch data centres in Middenmeer employing approximately 400 people; the Amsterdam towers are developed by Pure DC, Binnenlands Bestuur reported.
FOR DEVELOPERS The province says the towers cover under ten hectares, so the national hyperscale rule does not apply, Binnenlands Bestuur reported.
FOR THE CITY Amsterdam’s council passed a motion backing talks with the national government on who runs data centres, Binnenlands Bestuur reported.
The framework says: “Companies that solve the power equation will dominate the AI era; those that don’t will watch their chips sit idle.”
As we read it, local permission is part of that power equation in Amsterdam as well as in the US. The framework does not discuss Amsterdam, Microsoft’s lease or the 6 November protest.
What Is Not Established
We did not find a statement from Amsterdam police, the municipality, Microsoft or Pure DC on Friday’s events in the reports we read. The reports we read do not give the number of arrests, any damage to the site or any effect on construction.
Crowd figures differ by source. Reuters’ witness saw around 100 people on the construction site; the news-agency report said about a hundred tried to reach it; NOS reported several dozen clashing with police. The reports also name two organisers, Fossielvrij NL and Geef Tegengas.
The 100 MW is the figure cited by the letter’s signatories, as reported, not a Microsoft or Pure DC figure. Microsoft’s fact sheet does not give a capacity or an investment figure for the Amsterdam site.
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Reuters reported that around 100 protesters broke into the Microsoft-leased data-centre site on Amsterdam’s Plimsollweg on 6 November, and Dutch outlets reported police containment, a ban on the demonstration by the mayor and several arrests. The towers there were put at 100 MW by the signatories of a letter against them, above the 70 MW line in the Dutch hyperscale rule, but the province says they fall outside it because they cover less than ten hectares.
A note on sourcing. Event details are as reported by Reuters (including a Reuters witness), NOS, AT5 and a news-agency report carried by the Reformatorisch Dagblad, translated from Dutch where needed; we were not at the scene. Site and permit facts are from Binnenlands Bestuur (6 March 2026). Microsoft figures are from its October 2025 Netherlands fact sheet. The multiple of the 70 MW line is our arithmetic. We did not contact Microsoft, Pure DC, the police or the municipality.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
