Anthropic’s Claude hit by second outage in two days amid demand surge, Pentagon feud

Anthropic's AI chatbot, Claude, encountered another outage on March 3, marking a second consecutive day of service interruptions. By 9:43 AM, approximately 250 users had reported issues on the outage tracking site Downdetector. Visitors to the Claude platform were greeted with a notification stating, "Claude will return soon. Claude is currently experiencing a temporary service disruption." Data from Downdetector revealed that around 70% of the complaints were associated with the Claude Chat feature, while 16% involved the mobile application and 14% concerned Claude Code. Users took to social media to share their experiences, reporting slow response times, errors, and in some instances, complete access failures. In response to the ongoing issues, Anthropic's status page indicated, "We are currently investigating this issue." This disruption comes at a time when the AI startup is dealing with a surge in demand for its services. The company has reported a significant increase in usage, coinciding with escalating tensions with the U.S. Department of Defense regarding the potential applications of its technology in mass surveillance and the creation of autonomous weaponry. The Pentagon has labeled Anthropic a supply-chain risk, a move that is unprecedented for an American AI firm and could have far-reaching consequences for its operations. Since January, the number of free users of Claude has risen by over 60%, and paid subscribers have more than doubled since October. Anthropic has firmly stated that its products should not be utilized for surveillance or the development of fully autonomous weapons, asserting that "no amount of intimidation or punishment from the Department of War will change our position."