ChatGPT faces second major outage in one month, Microsoft also impacted
OpenAI's ChatGPT encountered its second significant outage, causing disruption for numerous users. The outage, which occurred around 1:30 PM ET (12 AM IST), led to ChatGPT failing to respond to user queries abruptly. According to DownDetector, users encountered an "internal server error" message during this time. Reports from various US users indicated that the platform was inaccessible, with complaints subsiding after approximately thirty minutes.
Microsoft's Involvement
OpenAI promptly addressed the issue on X, stating that they had identified the problem and were actively resolving it. While OpenAI did not specify the exact "upstream provider" responsible for the outage, Microsoft, their cloud services provider, reported a concurrent "power issue" at one of their data centers. This incident affected North America and coincided with the problems faced by OpenAI. Additional services like Xbox cloud gaming, API, and Sora also reported disruptions linked to the outage.
Recent Outages and Resolutions
Notably, ChatGPT has encountered multiple outages this month, including the most recent one on December 11, coinciding with the launch of iOS 18.2 by Apple, featuring GPT integration in Siri. This rendered the OpenAI chatbot temporarily unusable via Siri. The December 11 outage affected all three platforms - Sora, ChatGPT, and API. Downdetector recorded 2,483 outage reports during that incident, illustrating the widespread impact of the AI model's reliability issues.
Company Growth and Valuation
Since its inception in November 2022, ChatGPT has garnered an impressive 250 million weekly active users. OpenAI's valuation has surged to a remarkable $157 billion, a substantial increase from $14 billion in 2021. The company's revenues have surged to $3.6 billion from zero, surpassing earlier projections significantly.
Altman recently highlighted the widespread adoption of OpenAI's technology, revealing that the company now serves 300 million active users on a weekly basis. The continuous expansion of OpenAI's user base underscores the growing demand for advanced AI solutions.
