Explained: The Tech Outage That Threw ChatGPT Out Of Gear

In the wee hours of Wednesday (18 September), OpenAI’s conversational AI chatbot ChatGPT experienced a “partial outage” that impacted users worldwide. 

As per the company, the issue began around 3:50 PM PDT (4:20 AM IST) when some API models started showing “elevated error rates”. However, the partial outage reached Indian shores hours later in the morning as users began to report issues in accessing the chatbot. 

The company has since claimed to have resolved the issue. 

As per DownDetector, it received as many as 24 reports of the outage from India starting around 9:30 AM. By noon, the number of reports had surged to 54, before falling and climbing to around 48 reports by 5:30 PM. As per the website, users across all major cities, including Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Chandigarh, Ahmedabad, Indore, among others, reported facing issues while accessing ChatGPT.

However, this is not the first time that the company has been hit by a tech glitch. On September 16, all API requests on the platform were blocked and users faced difficulties with new account creations and logins.

Additionally, ChatGPT’s web interface encountered problems specifically with a version of Google Chrome, as noted on OpenAI’s status page. 

Meanwhile, ChatGPT Enterprise users have been experiencing issues with the Workspace Analytics tab, which hasn’t been returning data. 

Notably, the GenAI giant currently has more than 200 Mn users globally, of which India accounts for more than 9%. This makes India the second largest market for the company. To strengthen its presence in India, OpenAI hired Pragyya Misra, a former Meta and Truecaller employee, in April to lead public policy and partnerships in the country.

The development comes at a time when India’s GenAI ecosystem has been attracting significant investor interest. India is now home to more than 100 generative AI startups, which have collectively raised over $600 Mn since 2019. Ola’s Krutrim also became the country’s first AI unicorn earlier this year. 

Meanwhile, the Indian government has also taken a proactive approach, approving the IndiaAI Mission with a budget allocation of INR 10,372 Cr over the next five years. 

This funding aims to promote innovation in the domestic AI ecosystem and realise the mission’s goals through a public-private partnership (PPP) model.

According to an Inc42 report, India’s generative AI market is set for rapid growth, projected to expand from $1.1 Bn in 2023 to over $17 Bn by 2030, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 48%.

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