Several Companies Report Issues as Google Scrambles to Restore Cloud Platform

Google Cloud faced major technical problems on Thursday, causing widespread outages that affected businesses and online services around the world. The issues began late in the morning Pacific Time and continued for several hours, leaving both companies and users scrambling for solutions.

According to Google’s official status dashboard, the trouble started around 10:51 a.m. PT, with several of its services either going offline or working inconsistently. As the day went on, Google confirmed that it was still working to resolve the problems but had no clear timeline for when everything would be back to normal.

“Multiple GCP products are experiencing service issues,” Google’s cloud team stated, and added that engineers were still trying to figure out the exact cause of the disruptions.

Tech Giants and Startups Alike Feel the Impact

A number of major websites and platforms that rely on Google Cloud reported difficulties. Shopify, a major e-commerce provider, acknowledged the issue in a post on X (formerly Twitter), saying it was aware that many of its services weren’t functioning properly. OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, also reported problems related to user logins, including single sign-on issues. They assured users that their technical teams were working hard to resolve the situation.

Data from Downdetector, a website that tracks online outages, showed that more than 13,000 users had reported problems with Google Cloud at the height of the disruption, though that number began to drop by early afternoon.

While Google was in the spotlight, other major services experienced side effects. Cloudflare, which provides website protection and traffic management, mentioned that a “limited” number of its services were impacted due to their reliance on Google’s infrastructure. However, the company noted that most of its core systems remained stable.

Several other platforms reportedly affected include GitHub, Twitch, LangChain, Weights and Biases, GitLab, Mailchimp, and Replit. These disruptions appeared to stretch across North America, Europe, and parts of Asia.

Competitive Pressure Mounts as Google Cloud Faces Setback

This outage is particularly concerning for Google as it tries to gain more ground in the cloud computing market. While the company has seen growth in this area—thanks in part to the increasing popularity of AI tools—it still trails behind Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure in terms of overall market share.

Thursday’s problems could hurt that momentum. With businesses relying more than ever on cloud platforms to keep their operations running, any extended downtime can damage trust. That’s especially true for a platform like Google Cloud, which has pitched itself as a reliable choice for modern enterprises.

Adding to the pressure, Google has been cutting costs and laying off staff across several departments this year, including in sales and customer support. These layoffs were part of a broader effort by its parent company, Alphabet, to streamline operations. But some critics are now questioning whether these cutbacks may have had any effect on service quality or response times during emergencies like this one.

Ongoing Investigations and Cautious Recovery

As of late Thursday, Google continued to investigate the root cause of the issue. The company admitted that a total of 13 of its cloud-based services were affected. It also acknowledged that customers were seeing mixed results, with some systems recovering while others remained unstable.

Search activity on Google also revealed that many users were looking up “Firebase,” which is one of Google’s platforms for developing and managing mobile and web applications—indicating developers were heavily affected as well.

A spokesperson from Google encouraged users to keep checking its cloud status page for live updates and said that the team was “actively working to restore full service.”

While AWS confirmed that it had received some reports of disruptions, a representative said there were no actual outages on their end.

Looking Ahead

Though the situation seems to be slowly improving, the broader impact of this incident will likely spark renewed discussions about cloud reliability and backup planning. Businesses that rely on cloud services for everything from app hosting to customer management may take this as a reminder to diversify their systems or set up better fail-safes.

For Google Cloud, this event serves as both a challenge and a wake-up call as it continues its climb in one of the most competitive sectors of the tech world.