Thousands of people took to the streets across Europe on Saturday, 7 November, in a coordinated day of protest against the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence data centres, as opposition to the industry's energy and water demands spread from town halls to capital cities.

Around 2,000 people marched in Dublin, according to Irish broadcaster RTE, while about 1,300 gathered in Helsinki, Finnish broadcaster YLE reported, with smaller demonstrations in towns across Finland. In Helsinki, marchers walked to Google's offices and on to the parliament building. Protests were also held in Berlin, Warsaw and outside a Microsoft data centre near Koge in Denmark.

The actions were organised under the Stop Dirty Data Centres banner, a coalition of more than 100 local democracy and climate groups across 15 European countries. Its demand is a moratorium on approvals for new large data centres until governments set clearer rules on how the facilities should serve the public. Campaigners say they want to halt the unchecked expansion of AI data centres and stop democratic decisions being taken hostage by big tech interests.

Saturday's marches followed a demonstration in Amsterdam on Friday, when hundreds of protesters clashed with police at a Microsoft data centre construction site, resulting in one arrest. In Ireland, the campaign has particular force: data centres consumed 23 per cent of all metered electricity in the country in 2025, according to official statistics, up from 5 per cent in 2015.

The European protests come days after American voters turned against data centre projects in local ballots during the US midterm elections, and campaigners say the issue is now a live political question on both sides of the Atlantic. Read the full Bloomberg report at BusinessMirror.