ChatGPT Experiences Major Outage, Affecting Users Worldwide

OpenAI cites an upstream provider issue for the disruption, which impacted ChatGPT, its API, and Sora services for several hours.

The outage began around 1:30 PM ET on December 26, affecting users across regions, with over 50,000 reports logged on Downdetector.
OpenAI identified the issue as stemming from an 'upstream provider,' with Microsoft later confirming a power incident at a South Central US data center.
Services such as ChatGPT, its API, and the Sora video-generation platform were impacted; Sora was partially restored before ChatGPT began recovering.
By early morning on December 27, OpenAI reported that ChatGPT was mostly operational, though chat history and full functionality were still being addressed.
The outage highlighted users' reliance on AI tools, with many expressing frustration and humor on social media about having to complete tasks without the chatbot.