Anthropic’s Claude reports widespread outage

Anthropic's flagship AI services, Claude.ai and Claude Code, were hit by a widespread outage on Monday morning, disrupting access for thousands of users. The company's status page confirmed the issues were related to login and logout paths, while the Claude API remained functional. This technical disruption arrives during a period of unprecedented growth for the chatbot, which recently surged to the #1 spot on the App Store, overtaking its long-time rival ChatGPT after spending weeks outside the top 20. The surge in user attention is partly attributed to heightened public and political scrutiny following a dispute between Anthropic and the U.S. Department of Defense over AI safeguards.

The outage's timing is significant, highlighting potential scaling challenges as user demand spikes. While Anthropic has identified the problem and is rolling out a fix, the company has not yet detailed the technical root cause. This incident occurs against a contentious political backdrop: last week, President Trump directed federal agencies to stop using Anthropic products, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth indicated the company could be designated a supply-chain threat. Anthropic maintains it has not received formal notices regarding this designation and emphasizes its commitment to preventing its models from being used for mass surveillance or autonomous weapons. The event underscores the operational pressures facing leading AI firms as they balance rapid growth, technical reliability, and complex geopolitical constraints.