Cloudflare experienced a widespread outage on Tuesday, disrupting access to numerous major websites and services around the world. The issue affected platforms including OpenAI’s ChatGPT, e-commerce site Shopify, and Elon Musk’s social media platform X, according to Downdetector, which also faced temporary outages for some users. OpenAI’s status page confirmed that both ChatGPT and its Sora video generation tool were experiencing problems, citing an issue with one of its third-party service providers. A Cloudflare spokesperson said the company detected an "unusual spike in traffic" to one of its services at approximately 6:20 a.m. ET, which led to errors in traffic routing across its network. The company has not yet identified the root cause of the traffic surge. "We do not yet know the cause of the spike in unusual traffic," the spokesperson said. "We are all hands on deck to make sure all traffic is served without errors." In a follow-up update posted to its status page at 8:35 a.m. ET, Cloudflare confirmed it was actively working to restore full service. The company serves as a critical backbone for about 20% of the web, offering services such as content delivery, DDoS protection, and domain name system (DNS) management. Its infrastructure helps protect websites from malicious traffic and ensures reliable access for users globally. The outage comes just weeks after a major disruption to Amazon Web Services, which caused widespread outages for a full day, and a global failure of Microsoft’s Azure cloud and Office 365 services. In July 2024, a software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike triggered a global IT meltdown, grounding flights, disrupting financial systems, and forcing hospitals to delay medical procedures. Cloudflare’s stock dropped more than 5% in premarket trading following the news. The incident highlights the growing fragility of internet infrastructure, as a single point of failure in a major provider can ripple across the digital ecosystem. The company continues to investigate the cause and provide updates as more information becomes available.