ChatGPT is operational once again following a recent ChatGPT outage that temporarily took the world’s most recognized artificial intelligence (AI) tool offline. Downdetector, a service that monitors website disruptions, indicated that over 10,000 users reported issues with the AI chatbot, developed by OpenAI, in the United Kingdom on Thursday.
Users who tried to access the platform encountered a message stating, “the web server reported a bad gateway error.” OpenAI communicated via its status page that a solution was implemented at 15:09 GMT, noting that the company was “monitoring the results.” Although the exact cause of the ChatGPT outage has not been publicly disclosed, it began at approximately 11:00 GMT on Thursday. Many individuals took to social media platforms to share their experiences and express the inconvenience caused by the disruption.
Earlier on Thursday, OpenAI acknowledged the ChatGPT outage on X, stating, “ChatGPT and some of our APIs had high error rates earlier due to an issue with our provider. We’ve issued a fix and should be fully recovered soon. Thanks for your patience!”
Read more | ChatGPT down: OpenAI users report global outage
Surge in popularity and user base of ChatGPT
Since its launch in November 2022, ChatGPT has ignited immense global interest and investment in generative AI technologies. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman reported that by December 2024, ChatGPT was utilized weekly by over 300 million individuals worldwide. While many users opt for the free version of the chatbot, the company offers various membership tiers that can cost up to $200 per month. This surge in usage follows commitments from tech companies, including OpenAI, to invest $500 billion into AI infrastructure in the United States.
Previous incidents of ChatGPT outages
In the previous month, ChatGPT experienced another significant ChatGPT outage when the chatbot failed to respond to user queries, with some users encountering an “internal server error” message. Microsoft identified a “power issue” at one of its data centers around the same time, which impacted users in North America.
The ChatGPT outage is not an isolated incident; the service has faced multiple downtimes over recent months. Just days after OpenAI launched the video generation tool Sora to ChatGPT subscribers earlier this month, both Sora and ChatGPT went offline for several hours. Additionally, a widespread outage in June impacted various AI tools, causing further disruptions.
This latest ChatGPT outage occurred just one day after the announcement of the ambitious $500 billion Stargate project, a collaborative endeavor involving OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank. OpenAI characterized the Stargate initiative as a transformative step for American leadership in AI. “This infrastructure will secure American leadership in AI, create hundreds of thousands of jobs and generate massive economic benefit globally,” the company stated in a public announcement.
