Data centers are becoming a target for left-wing extremists. German counterintelligence warns of sabotage against AI infrastructure

Germany's civil counterintelligence agency — the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, BfV) — has placed data centers among the new targets of politically motivated violence. According to the Sunday paper Welt am Sonntag, the agency warns that every company developing artificial intelligence or building infrastructure for it must now reckon with threats from two directions at once: from domestic left-wing extremists, for whom server halls have become a symbol, and from foreign powers capable of both cyber and physical sabotage. Welt am Sonntag ↗

What German counterintelligence describes

According to the BfV, server halls have become a symbol of "digital mega-corporations" and the expansion of artificial intelligence for part of the left-wing extremist scene. As a concrete example, the agency cites, per Welt am Sonntag, a call to action by a group operating under the name Barrio, directed against a large data center in Brandenburg. Counterintelligence also warns that new centers in rural areas are the most vulnerable — that is where most of the growth is happening, and according to the agency they are "relatively difficult to guard." Welt am Sonntag / dts ↗

Brandenburg already has a precedent

This is not a purely theoretical concern. In March 2024, the left-wing Vulkangruppe set fire to a high-voltage pylon near Tesla's Gigafactory in Grünheide. Production was halted for several days, damages climbed above one hundred million euros, and the group demanded in a letter the "complete destruction" of the plant; Elon Musk called them "eco-terrorists" at the time. NPR ↗ In early January 2026, another arson attack near the Teltow Canal in southwestern Berlin cut power to around 45,000 households, according to the investigative outlet Correctiv. Correctiv ↗ According to the BfV itself, attacks on critical infrastructure in Berlin and Brandenburg have recurred "at irregular intervals since 2011." Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz ↗

The second threat: foreign powers

Welt am Sonntag places the warning in a broader context. Alongside domestic extremists, the BfV also speaks of risk from foreign powers — ranging from cyberattacks to physical sabotage. That concern resonates across Europe: the French daily Le Monde this week mapped out a series of sabotage and espionage attempts on French soil, behind which it sees "the shadow of Moscow." Le Monde ↗ Meanwhile, Germany's federal and state interior ministers agreed at a conference in Hamburg that the country needs to be "made resilient to crisis" against scenarios of sabotage and blackout, and Federal Minister of the Interior Alexander Dobrindt raised the security alert level. Süddeutsche Zeitung ↗

How this differs from the Slovak perspective

Slovak and Czech media do cover data centers — but almost exclusively as an energy and climate topic: how much electricity and water they consume, whether they should be powered by nuclear energy, and how they are changing the real estate market. Trend ↗ The security dimension — that a server hall can be a target just like a pipeline or a substation — is practically absent from domestic reporting. Yet the data center boom is also moving into Central Europe Novinky.cz ↗, and the question of how to protect scattered digital infrastructure will sooner or later reach us too.

Limits of this view

Some caution is warranted. The Barrio group's call to action is so far a threat, not an executed attack — and claims of responsibility on left-wing platforms like Indymedia cannot always be verified (authorities long failed to confirm the letter in the Tesla case). Moreover, the BfV is an institution that, through its warnings, also defends its own powers and budget, and part of the German public considers the term "left-wing extremism" overused. And it is mainly Welt that draws a direct line between domestic sabotage and the Russian hybrid threat — counterintelligence itself speaks more cautiously, referring to "foreign powers" in general terms.

What hotinfo is following

• Whether the Barrio group's call to action, cited by the BfV, leads to an actual attack on the Brandenburg data center.
• The conclusions of Germany's conference of interior ministers on protecting critical infrastructure.
• The investigation into January's Berlin power outage and any potential charges.
• Whether the expansion of data centers in Central Europe will spark a domestic security debate as well.