OpenAI, the artificial intelligence research organization behind the popular ChatGPT and Sora services, is experiencing a major outage affecting its developer-facing API and user-facing applications. According to the company's status page, the outage has been ongoing for over two hours, with no clear indication of the cause.

The outage comes on the same day that OpenAI launched its integration with Apple in iOS 18.2, which could have contributed to an influx of traffic onto the company's servers. This integration marked a significant milestone for OpenAI, expanding the reach of its AI technology to a broader audience. However, it appears that the increased traffic may have put a strain on the company's infrastructure, leading to the current outage.

Earlier this week, OpenAI also launched Sora publicly, a move that was met with significant interest from users. CEO Sam Altman acknowledged that the startup had underestimated the demand for Sora, resulting in the need to limit the number of users who could sign up. Many users who did manage to sign up were unable to produce videos on the first day, receiving a message that OpenAI's servers were at capacity. This earlier issue may be related to the current outage, although the exact cause remains unclear.

OpenAI has taken to Twitter to apologize for the outage and assure users that it is working on a fix. The company's status page indicates that it has identified the issue and is working to roll out a solution. However, at the time of writing, the services remain unavailable.

This outage follows another global service interruption to Meta's products that occurred earlier on Wednesday. While it is unclear whether these outages are related, they do highlight the importance of robust infrastructure and scalability in the tech industry. As AI technology continues to advance and become more integrated into our daily lives, the reliability and availability of these services will become increasingly critical.

The impact of this outage on OpenAI's users and partners remains to be seen. The company's services have become essential tools for many developers, researchers, and businesses, and any prolonged downtime could have significant consequences. As OpenAI works to resolve the issue, users will be eagerly awaiting the restoration of these critical services.

In the meantime, OpenAI's outage serves as a reminder of the importance of investing in robust infrastructure and scalability, particularly as AI technology continues to advance and become more widespread. As the tech industry continues to evolve, the reliability and availability of these services will become increasingly critical to their success.