OpenAI poaches Uber India chief to lead its biggest market outside the U.S.

OpenAI is making yet different big, disposable stake connected India. It has appointed erstwhile Uber India and South Asia president Prabhjeet Singh arsenic its archetypal managing manager for the state to standard its beingness successful what it has called its second-largest marketplace aft the U.S.

Singh, who announced his resignation from Uber connected Friday, volition articulation OpenAI successful September and study to Kiran Mani, the company’s managing manager for Asia-Pacific, the institution told TechCrunch. He volition beryllium liable for OpenAI’s show successful India crossed user growth, endeavor adoption, partnerships, regulatory engagement, and operations, the institution said.

The prosecute marks OpenAI’s latest concern successful India. The institution opened its archetypal bureau successful New Delhi past August and earlier this twelvemonth said it would establish caller offices successful Mumbai and Bengaluru. In 2024, it hired erstwhile Truecaller and Meta enforcement Pragya Misra to pb nationalist argumentation and partnerships earlier expanding her relation to caput of strategy and planetary affairs past year. OpenAI had earlier brought connected erstwhile Twitter India caput Rishi Jaitly arsenic a elder advisor to assistance found its engagement with the Indian authorities connected AI policy.

Over the past fewer months, OpenAI struck partnerships successful the federation spanning higher education, enterprise payments, AI-powered commerce, and web streaming, portion also becoming part of the country’s growing information halfway build-out. OpenAI has pointed to India’s rapidly increasing adoption of ChatGPT arsenic a motion of the market’s importance. Indian conglomerates Reliance and Tata Group are besides among its aboriginal partners successful the market.

The institution has simultaneously ramped up hiring successful India, with openings including AI deployment engineers, developer acquisition engineers, a developer selling lead, a spouse director, and solutions engineers.

India has emerged arsenic 1 of the cardinal battlegrounds for U.S. AI companies, driven by its immense developer base, much than a cardinal net users, and surging request for generative AI. Rival Anthropic opened its India bureau successful Bengaluru successful precocious 2025 and earlier this twelvemonth named erstwhile Microsoft India managing manager Irina Ghose arsenic its India head.