A left-wing activist group responsible for power cuts in the German capital has cited data centers in a statement explaining its actions.

Vulkangruppe, or the Volcano Group, has claimed responsibility for the sabotage of a power plant on Saturday, which cut electricity to properties in south-west Berlin. Power supply was not restored until Wednesday.

A statement attributed to the group was posted to Indymedia on January 4, stating that the attack was an “act of self-defence and international solidarity with all those who protect the Earth and life.”

The statement mentioned that data centers and AI were driving an “insatiable” hunger for energy that was “devouring the Earth’s crust and our lives.”

“We feed our data to the so-called ‘clouds,’ which are nothing more than gigantic, energy-guzzling data centers and server farms. These also consume our drinking water and churn out numbers that bombard our screens with useless, supposedly important spam until we’ve forgotten how to look our neighbor in the eye.”

But a separate statement also attributed to Vulkangruppe was posted to Indymedia on January 7, alleging that the power plant attack was conducted by a separate group operating under the Vulkangruppe name.

“We expressly distance ourselves from all actions of recent years that were carried out under our name or in reference to us,” reads the statement.

Either way, there seems to have been no major reports of data center interruptions. German data center operator NorthC told DCD that it had been unaffected, and DCD has also reached out to data center companies Vantage, Penta Infra, and nLighten.

Germany saw an influx of large-scale data center projects in 2025. In November, Lidl owner Schwarz Group broke ground on a 200MW facility in Lübbenau, and in December, major telco Deutsche Telekom and Schwarz Group were reportedly in talks to apply for the European Union’s €20 billion ($23.2bn) AI gigafactories fund.

Hyperscalers like Google, Microsoft, and AWS have also made investment pledges in the country.