OpenAI is building its own internal code repository platform, according to reporting by The Information — a move that could put the company on a collision course with Microsoft, its largest investor and owner of GitHub.

The Outage Problem

The catalyst is straightforward: GitHub keeps going down. OpenAI engineers have experienced multi-hour windows where they couldn't commit code or collaborate due to repeated GitHub outages. GitHub is currently mid-migration from its legacy Virginia data center to Microsoft Azure, leaving it in a split-traffic state that has produced a string of failures.

A GitProtect report found GitHub suffered a 58% year-over-year increase in incidents in H1 2025 — from 69 to 109 cases — including 17 "major" incidents that collectively caused more than 100 hours of disruption. GitHub's own CTO acknowledged the platform's availability "was not yet meeting our expectations."

What OpenAI Is Building

The internal project is in its early stages, with completion expected to take several months. Teams involved have floated the possibility of eventually offering it as a paid service to OpenAI's customer base — potentially bundled with its Codex AI coding agents — which would put it in direct competition with GitHub Copilot.

The Awkward Subtext

Microsoft holds roughly a 27% stake in OpenAI and acquired GitHub in 2018 for $7.5 billion. For OpenAI to build a competing code platform would represent a striking shift in the two companies' relationship, at a moment when OpenAI is also reportedly exploring independence from Microsoft's Azure infrastructure.

The platform may end up staying internal — but the fact it's being built at all says something about where that partnership stands.