OpenAI가 새 Astra 모델에 대한 전례 없는 수요로 시스템 용량이 초과되자 $200 ChatGPT 가입을 일시 중단했다.

When OpenAI launched Astra last week—a model whose advanced capabilities prompted President Greg Brockman to call it the start of the "AGI era"—the company granted access only to a handful of enterprise customers to manage its compute scaling.

Following its release to paying users, demand for Astra surged so dramatically that OpenAI has suspended new sign-ups and upgrades to the $200-per-month ChatGPT Pro plan, the tier where Astra is available, citing insufficient capacity.

On Thursday, the company announced it was pausing new sign-ups to its most expensive plan on the Pro tier, which offers 20 times the usage of the Plus tier below it. Head of Product Thibault Sottiaux explained on X that the $200 plan places the greatest strain on the company's systems.

"We wanted to take the smallest step that allows us to continue giving the broadest access possible," Sottiaux said, noting that OpenAI is "working on adding more capacity" and that existing Pro subscribers remain unaffected.

A day earlier, Sottiaux had described Astra demand as "unprecedented," cautioning that the company "might have to pause new Pro subscriptions for a bit" if pressure continued. "We're pulling all the levers possible to sustain the demand, but I've not seen anything like it until now and we went through very steep growth before," he wrote on X.

Astra's architecture explains the infrastructure strain. Its signature feature, called "computer use," enables it to interact with a desktop as a human would—filling out forms and navigating web pages at "superhuman speed," according to Brockman. The company also noted that Astra consumes users' usage allowances faster than its previous flagship model, GPT 5.6 Sol.

This marks OpenAI's second subscription pause due to capacity constraints. In November 2023, the company halted sign-ups to its $20-per-month ChatGPT Plus plan following a surge in demand from its first developer conference. "The surge in usage post DevDay has exceeded our capacity and we want to make sure everyone has a great experience," CEO Sam Altman wrote on X at the time.

Since then, OpenAI has significantly expanded its infrastructure. The company reported that available compute rose from 0.2 gigawatts in 2023 to approximately 1.9 GW in 2025—a 9.5-fold increase over two years.

The company continues racing to expand compute capacity even amid concerns that an AI bubble burst could leave excess computational resources stranded. AI hardware, particularly GPUs—the chips that power AI training calculations—can depreciate significantly within years.

OpenAI has diversified its infrastructure partnerships beyond its core relationship with Microsoft Azure, bringing on cloud computing provider CoreWeave and launching Stargate, a $500 billion, four-year AI infrastructure initiative. The company has also secured new capacity commitments beginning in the second half of 2026, including plans for at least 10 GW of Nvidia systems, a 6-GW agreement with Advanced Micro Devices for GPUs, and a partnership with Broadcom to deploy 10 GW of custom AI accelerators.

OpenAI declined to comment for this article.