OpenAI Building GitHub Alternative After Platform Outages Disrupt AI Development

OpenAI is developing its own code repository platform as an alternative to Microsoft's GitHub, according to a report from The Information. The project was prompted by a rise in GitHub outages that left OpenAI engineers unable to commit or collaborate on code for stretches of up to several hours, two people working at large GitHub customers told the publication.

The project is still in early stages and probably won't be completed for months, a person with knowledge of it told The Information. Employees working on it have discussed the possibility of selling access to the platform to OpenAI customers — though the company could ultimately keep it exclusively for internal use.

GitHub's reliability has degraded noticeably over the past year, following an overhaul of its infrastructure. GitHub CTO Vladimir Fedorov told employees in an October memo that the platform would migrate all of its software to Microsoft Azure within two years, calling the move "existential" to meet the demands of AI-powered tools such as GitHub Copilot. Platform migration began in October 2025 and is still in progress, which means GitHub is running in a split-traffic state across its legacy Virginia data center and Azure.

Multiple recent outages have been attributed either directly to Azure or to configuration issues introduced during the migration. In early February, a four-hour outage was traced to an underlying Azure problem. A separate outage a week later, which took down many GitHub services for around three hours, was attributed to a configuration change — with GitHub acknowledging in a public incident report that its availability was "not yet meeting our expectations."

GitHub reported a 58% year-over-year increase in incidents during the first half of 2025, rising from 69 cases to 109 — with 17 classified as "major" — totaling over 100 hours of disruption, according to a mid-year report from GitProtect.

If OpenAI does sell the platform commercially, particularly bundled with its Codex coding agents, it will mark a direct competitive move against Microsoft. Microsoft currently holds roughly 27% of OpenAI, and acquired GitHub in 2018 for $7.5 billion. OpenAI has already encroached on other Microsoft territory: It's reportedly developing ChatGPT features that overlap with Office applications for document collaboration and presentation editing.

Building internal code repositories is not unusual for large tech companies. Google runs Piper, and Meta runs Sapling — though neither has been released as a commercial product. An OpenAI commercial offering would be a different proposition — though losing OpenAI as a customer would be mostly symbolic for GitHub, given its tens of millions of paying users, according to the source from The Information.

The timing of this development is particularly notable given the current state of AI infrastructure. As companies race to build larger and more capable models, the ability to efficiently collaborate on code has become critical. OpenAI's reliance on GitHub for its core development work means that even brief outages can cascade into significant delays for model training and feature development.

This move also reflects a broader trend in the tech industry where companies are increasingly building their own infrastructure rather than relying on third-party platforms. For OpenAI, which is at the forefront of AI development, having control over its code repository infrastructure could provide both reliability and competitive advantages.

The potential commercial release of OpenAI's platform would create an interesting dynamic in the developer tools market. While GitHub has dominated this space for years, the rise of AI-powered coding tools has created new demands for repository platforms. OpenAI's deep expertise in AI could allow it to integrate advanced features that GitHub cannot match, particularly around code generation and automated testing.

However, OpenAI faces significant challenges in competing with GitHub's established ecosystem. GitHub has built a massive network of integrations, plugins, and third-party tools over the years. Any new platform would need to offer compelling advantages to convince developers to switch, especially given GitHub's integration with Microsoft's broader developer tools.

The relationship between OpenAI and Microsoft adds another layer of complexity to this situation. While the two companies have a significant partnership, with Microsoft investing billions in OpenAI and providing cloud infrastructure, this development suggests that OpenAI is willing to compete directly with Microsoft in certain areas when it serves their strategic interests.

For the broader developer community, this development could signal the beginning of a new era in code repository platforms. As AI becomes increasingly central to software development, the tools that developers use to collaborate and manage code may need to evolve to support new workflows and capabilities.

The success of OpenAI's platform, whether internal or commercial, will likely depend on how well it addresses the specific pain points that led to its development. If it can provide the reliability and performance that OpenAI needs while also offering innovative features that appeal to the broader developer community, it could represent a significant shift in the developer tools landscape.

For now, the project remains in early stages, and it's unclear whether OpenAI will ultimately pursue a commercial strategy or keep the platform internal. What is clear is that the outages and disruptions that prompted this development have had a significant enough impact on OpenAI's operations to warrant the investment in building an alternative solution.