A group of protesters broke into an Amsterdam construction site for a Microsoft data center and clashed with police on Friday, according to a report from the Associated Press. Dutch authorities said they detained between 150 and 200 people for trespassing during the demonstration.

One protester told a local broadcaster that the group was attempting to halt construction of the data center, the AP report said.

Microsoft said it was aware of the demonstration and responded through a spokesperson: “We understand that people feel strongly about the project, and we respect their right to express those views peacefully,” the spokesperson said. “However, we do not condone any actions that are unlawful or that put people’s safety at risk.”

The clash highlights the friction that can emerge when the physical infrastructure behind cloud and AI services moves into communities, and it comes amid growing scrutiny of data centers — large facilities that house the servers underpinning cloud computing and artificial intelligence services and that consume significant amounts of electricity and water. In the United States, a tougher regulatory environment is expected to follow the recent midterm elections, which saw a wave of Democrats campaign on pledges to clamp down on data center development, AP reported.

That pushback is also surfacing at the local level. In September, Cointelegraph reported that the town of Plattsburgh, New York, held a public hearing to discuss a temporary land use moratorium covering operations including AI data centers and crypto mining.

Microsoft operates a global network of data centers supporting its Azure cloud platform, and growing demand for AI computing has driven accelerated data center construction worldwide. How Dutch authorities process the detentions — and how the Amsterdam project moves forward — will be watched as the debate over where, and under what conditions, AI-era infrastructure gets built continues on both sides of the Atlantic.