Microsoft's billions in data centers have gotten local communities to rise up

On the winding asphalt path, Melanie Nakagawa walks with Mayor Michael Ziegler (K). A camera shot from Microsoft's Danish division follows the tech giant's global sustainability officer. Earlier in the day, she landed at Copenhagen Airport from the USA. A long wait at passport control made her a little more rushed towards the meeting with the mayor in front of Microsoft's new data center in the Sjælland municipality. It is not only this day that is characterized by extraordinary busyness. In recent years, data centers have put extra fuel in the burners of tech companies like Microsoft, Google, and Facebook. All of them will invest billions to house the hundreds of thousands of servers that will be in neat rows and on several floors to support the artificial intelligence boom. All of them must also deal with local resistance, which has risen as the data centers have announced their arrival. In the USA, protest movements have blocked or delayed at least 65 projects worth up to 68 billion dollars from April to June this year, according to data from Data Center Watch, which monitors the resistance directed at the centers. The same is true in Denmark, where the question has been hotly debated. The concerns are the same: Will the data centers suck up all the green power, and what about water consumption and the environment? Two neighbors to a giant data center in Holbæk refuse to sell their houses to keep the center from leaving. Neighbors want answers Melanie Nakagawa says that the questions about the physical data centers have been taken seriously by Microsoft. Local citizens want to know what it means to be neighbors. "We hear questions about how we can cooperate more closely with local communities and meet their needs and concerns as we expand our physical data center capacity in Europe and the rest of the world," she says from the company's headquarters in Kongens Lyngby after the visit to the data center. Melanie Nakagawa points to Høje-Taastrup as an example of the development. However, more positive than what typically characterizes the debate. She explains that they asked about the use of the data center's waste heat, which will eventually be used for heating the municipality's homes. The same will apply to the project in Køge. The questions vary depending on the area. If there is less rain in an area, they are about the method for cooling the servers and water consumption. If that is the case, Microsoft can recycle the water in a closed loop, Nakagawa points out. Under cross-pressure Along with other tech giants, Microsoft is under cross-pressure. While the thirst for data capacity seems almost impossible to quench, the physical expansion comes with a bill for climate and environment. It is a dilemma that Melanie Nakagawa acknowledges, but which should be seen from both sides. "We are seeing incredible breakthroughs in the use of artificial intelligence to accelerate the green energy transition, get more renewable energy into the energy system, and accelerate the development and transmission of clean energy," she says, pointing to areas such as economic growth, education, and environmental protection. She is also from Seattle, where wildfires rage through cities and vast areas on the American West every year. Today, according to her, artificial intelligence and sensor technologies can be used to detect a forest fire several hours before the first call to the emergency center. "This allows firefighters to get there faster and prevent fires from getting larger, which is a real problem with wildfires," she says. That is precisely what should be the focus, answers Melanie Nakagawa when asked whether she is worried that data centers will not be welcome in the long run if resistance grows further. "For me, it is about ensuring that the population where we have data centers and the people concerned about data centers understand the value that digital technologies add to their daily lives, and what responsibility we have as Microsoft to use the resources as efficiently and responsibly as possible." Access to electricity In Denmark, the data centers with their large electricity consumption have really come to the forefront, after the enormous pressure on the power grid became clear. For several years, companies have tried to get access, while the queue has grown longer and longer. An emergency plan now allows for prioritization in the queue, but data centers are not at the front here. It is not only in Denmark that the power grid lags far behind demand. Access to electricity is naturally a big piece for data centers, where several in, for example, the USA, currently use gas turbines as an alternative source of electricity. The need for massive investments in the power grid has created an opportunity to discuss the area and prioritization, which was not possible before, Melanie Nakagawa says. "Now there is an awareness that the power grids must be able to serve many different actors," Nakagawa says. According to the director, it is about telling how the company's growth does not increase prices or costs for local communities. "Therefore, we have paid our share of the electricity as well as the infrastructure necessary to connect it." What is the challenge for Microsoft that the power grids around the world have stood still for so many years when you also need all that electricity to run your data centers? "What I have learned from the last decades is how fantastic energy efficiency is. Energy consumption grew, but it became more efficient. Therefore, it was possible to manage the growth within the existing system," Melanie Nakagawa says, pointing to how increased efficiency can also help manage the upcoming growth. So you don't see the lack of capacity in the power grids right now as a challenge? "We see it as an opportunity for dialogue to find out how we can solve it together with the other users." The carbon footprint is growing The nervousness about data centers' use of electricity, water, and resources does not only come from neighbors. Several of IT company's employees have raised the same concern. According to Bloomberg, development director Noelle Walsh sent a message to the employees in August to reassure them, but also acknowledged that AI makes it difficult to reach previous emission targets, writes the media that saw the message. According to Melanie Nakagawa, Microsoft has established an employee forum for sustainability where this type of nervousness can be aired. Employees also come up with solutions here. "Our own employees are an incredible resource when it comes to helping us understand where the challenges lie and what we can do to remove some of the obstacles associated with resource consumption," she says. This has led, among other things, to a system for recycling or reusing hardware from the data centers, the director says. With current growth ambitions, the consumption of resources is increasing. At the end of 2025, the company warned that the IT giant will spend more than 500 billion kronor on new data centers. The expansion is concretely reflected in the total carbon footprint. By 2030, Microsoft aims to eliminate more CO2 than the company emits. In the last year, emissions grew by 25 percent to 20 million tons of CO2-equivalents. FACTS It will be Microsoft Microsoft has identified four areas to be achieved by 2030: - CO2-negative by reducing emissions across operations and value chains and removing more CO2 than the company emits. - "Water positive" by, among other things, reducing water consumption, replenishing more water resources than are obtained, improving access to water and sanitation. - Achieving zero waste by reducing waste at the source, using products and materials for longer, and recycling the remaining resources. - Protecting ecosystems by using data and digital technologies and protecting a larger land area than the company uses by 2025. - Microsoft is now publishing data for CO2, water, etc. for the data centers that the company owns to provide insight into the development. Microsoft's Sustainability Report 2026 Melanie Nakagawa points out that the figure would have reached 37 million tons without various measures, including clean energy. "Last year we matched 100 percent of our electricity consumption with renewable electricity," she says, referring to concluded contracts that will secure new energy of about 40 gigawatts. "We are investing a lot in clean energy and CO2-free electricity. And that is absolutely crucial for how we achieve our ambitions." Microsoft has invested billions in projects as part of climate work for several years that can remove CO2 from the atmosphere to store it in the ground. In the spring, several media outlets reported a pause on the billion-dollar investments, which was confirmed to the Stock Exchange by the Danish division. Since then, Microsoft has entered into an agreement for CO2 storage with Danish Biocirc, and the program is still underway, the director emphasizes. Can the pace be slowed down? Another part is about the value chain and, above all, materials with a lower carbon footprint. With the data center boom, Microsoft needs steel, cement, and fuels that have a much smaller footprint on the planet. Therefore, Microsoft has invested in the company Stegra, which develops green steel, and which Danish pension funds have also sent billions to. However, the Swedish company has been delayed in relation to the original ambition. "The markets need to grow faster, and they need to be ready by 2030," the director says. If development does not go as fast as you need, can you imagine a scenario where you actually paused the expansion or did not expand as fast as you plan? "We want to ensure that the markets develop, and we are determined to promote each of them to ensure that we can continue to develop and grow more sustainably. We are following them closely." But don't you see a scenario where you actually slow down the pace of data center expansion, if you look at your climate vision? "We do not believe it is an either-or. We believe that both are possible, and we are already seeing the results of that now. We are just trying to see how it can be scaled up going forward."