OpenAI Builds GitHub Rival After Service Disruptions Hit Microsoft Platform
OpenAI has begun developing a new code-hosting platform to rival Microsoft's GitHub, a move prompted by a series of service disruptions that left GitHub unavailable in recent months.
The ChatGPT creator's engineers experienced a rise in outages that ultimately interfered with their development workflows, according to sources familiar with the project.
The initiative marks a significant shift for the artificial intelligence company, which maintains a complex partnership with Microsoft.
The tech giant holds approximately 27 per cent of OpenAI on an as-converted diluted basis and acquired GitHub in 2018 for $7.5 billion.
OpenAI's decision to build a competing platform signals a desire for greater independence from Microsoft's infrastructure, despite the companies' ongoing collaboration.
The project remains in its early stages and will likely take several months to complete. Employees working on the platform have considered making the code repository available for purchase to OpenAI's customer base, though it may remain an internal tool.
Such a commercial launch would position OpenAI in direct competition with Microsoft, which currently serves as both its largest investor and key technology partner.
GitHub has experienced multiple outages during 2025 and early 2026, with several incidents attributed to the platform's ongoing migration from legacy data centres to Microsoft Azure.
OpenAI's own services were affected by GitHub dependencies during a February outage, when its Codex Cloud service experienced issues.
Neither OpenAI, GitHub, nor Microsoft responded yet.