Anthropic Claude Chatbot faces temporary outage amid soaring demand

2026-03-03 - 07:43

NEW YORK – US-based artificial intelligence company Anthropic PBC experienced a temporary outage of its popular AI chatbot Claude and related consumer applications due to unprecedented demand from users. The disruption affected public-facing platforms, including the Claude web portal and mobile apps, while businesses using Claude’s AI models remained operational. According to the company’s status page, all services were fully restored by 10:50 a.m. New York time. At the peak of the outage around 6:40 a.m., nearly 2,000 users reported service interruptions on the monitoring website Downdetector. Anthropic acknowledged the heavy user load over the past week and thanked customers for their patience. The surge in Claude usage coincides with a growing dispute between Anthropic and the United States Department of Defense. The Pentagon recently labeled Anthropic a supply-chain risk, an unusual move against a US tech company that could have significant implications for its business. Anthropic has seen rapid growth in user adoption, with free-tier users increasing by over 60% since January and paid subscriptions more than doubling since October. The company has strict policies preventing its AI from being used for domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons and plans to legally challenge the Pentagon’s designation. CEO Dario Amodei described the move as “retaliatory and punitive” in an interview with CBS News. Meanwhile, rival AI firm OpenAI has reached an agreement to deploy its AI models within the Defense Department’s classified network, with safeguards to prevent misuse in surveillance or autonomous weapon systems. The deal sparked criticism online, prompting calls to cancel ChatGPT subscriptions. Despite the controversy, the Claude AI app has maintained top rankings on Apple Inc.’s App Store, reflecting strong public support. Tech professionals in Silicon Valley have also rallied behind Anthropic’s principled stance against military deployment of AI for surveillance or autonomous warfare.