ChatGPT Outage: Major Disruption Affects Thousands Worldwide

On June 10, OpenAI’s chatbot, ChatGPT, faced a significant global outage that left countless users unable to access the platform. The disruption started at around 12:30 PM IST and quickly escalated, leading to an overwhelming number of complaints, particularly from regions like India, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Outage tracking websites like Downdetector recorded an alarming spike in reports, with over 1,100 complaints logged from India alone within a few hours. This sudden inaccessibility highlighted the dependency of users on AI services and sparked frustration among both free and paid subscribers who relied on the platform for various applications, including casual conversations, development projects, and enterprise solutions.

As users encountered error messages like “A network error occurred” or “Hmm…something seems to have gone wrong,” many initially believed the issue stemmed from their own network connections. However, it soon became evident that the problem lay within OpenAI’s servers. The company, led by CEO Sam Altman, later confirmed the situation on their status page, acknowledging the elevated errors and latency issues without providing a definitive timeline for the full restoration of services. This outage was concerning not only for ChatGPT but also affected other OpenAI products, such as the text-to-video generation tool ‘Sora’, underscoring the interconnectedness of their offerings.

This incident arrives at a notable juncture for OpenAI, having recently announced an impressive annual recurring revenue (ARR) of $10 billion, a remarkable rise from $5.5 billion just months earlier. With over 400 million weekly active users by February 2025, the demand for AI services has surged, sometimes overwhelming their infrastructure, as evidenced by similar outages in previous months. The timing of this latest disruption, only weeks after a $40 billion funding round that elevated the company’s valuation to $300 billion, raises questions about the resilience of OpenAI’s systems amidst rapid growth and increasing user engagement. As they work on mitigating the issues, many will be watching closely to see how OpenAI plans to enhance its infrastructure to better accommodate its expanding user base.

Summary

On June 10, OpenAI’s ChatGPT experienced a significant global outage, impacting thousands of users, particularly in India, the U.S., and the U.K., who reported connectivity issues beginning around 12:30 PM IST. Both free and paid users, alongside enterprise clients using OpenAI’s API, faced continuous error messages that misled them into thinking the problems were related to their own internet connections, before it became clear that the disruption stemmed from OpenAI’s servers. The company acknowledged the outage on its status page, noting that they were working on identifying the root cause and mitigating the issue, which persisted for several hours without a clear timeline for restoration. This outage also affected other OpenAI services, following a trend of similar disruptions earlier in the year, amidst the backdrop of the company reaching a $10 billion ARR milestone and a $300 billion valuation after significant funding rounds.