Claude experiences two major outages within two days, with Anthropic citing "unprecedented demand"

GateUser-6433627c · 2026-03-03T06:41:43+00:00

From March 2 to 3, Anthropic's AI assistant Claude experienced two major service outages due to a surge in user demand. Although the Claude API was unaffected, the consumer-side services were significantly impacted. Since January, the number of free Claude users has increased by over 60%, and paid users have more than doubled. The surge in downloads is related to OpenAI signing a partnership agreement with the U.S. Department of Defense.

GateUser-6433627c

2026-03-03 06:41:43

Abstract generation in progress

On March 3, Anthropic’s AI assistant Claude experienced two major service outages on March 2 and 3. On March 2 at 6:49 a.m. Eastern Time, Anthropic announced they were investigating increased error rates on claude.ai, mobile apps, Claude Opus 4.6, Claude Console, and Claude Code. Downdetector data showed over 2,000 users reported issues at peak times. After services were restored, Anthropic stated the team was “working to meet the huge recent demand for Claude.” On March 3 at 03:15 UTC, the official status page reported increased error rates on claude.ai, cowork, platform, and Claude Code, and as of 04:43 UTC, investigations were still ongoing. During both outages, Claude API (api.anthropic.com) and Claude for Government remained unaffected, with consumer services being most impacted. Anthropic attributed the outages to “unprecedented demand.” They disclosed that since January this year, free users have increased by over 60%, and paid subscribers have more than doubled since October last year. Bloomberg reported that the surge in demand was triggered by a rebound in users after OpenAI signed an AI collaboration contract with the U.S. Department of Defense—ChatGPT’s uninstallation rate in the U.S. soared 295% day-over-day, with 775% more one-star reviews, while Claude’s downloads in the U.S. grew between 37% and 88% week-over-week, temporarily surpassing ChatGPT in daily total downloads. Users can check the status of various service components in real-time at status.claude.com.

View Original

This page may contain third-party content, which is provided for information purposes only (not representations/warranties) and should not be considered as an endorsement of its views by Gate, nor as financial or professional advice. See Disclaimer for details.