OpenAI Taps Uber India Chief to Lead Indian Operations

OpenAI has appointed former Uber India and South Asia president Prabhjeet Singh as its first managing director for India. He will lead the company's efforts in the country, focusing on consumer growth, enterprise adoption, partnerships, regulatory engagement, and operations. Singh, who announced his resignation from Uber on Friday, will join OpenAI in September and report to Kiran Mani, the company’s managing director for Asia Pacific.

His appointment marks OpenAI’s latest investment in India, where the company opened its first office in New Delhi last August and plans to establish new offices in Mumbai and Bengaluru. The company has been actively building its presence in India, hiring former Truecaller and Meta executive Pragya Misra to lead public policy and partnerships in 2024. OpenAI also brought on former Twitter India head Rishi Jaitly as a senior adviser to help establish its engagement with the Indian government on AI policy.

Over the past few months, OpenAI has struck partnerships in India spanning higher education, enterprise payments, AI-powered commerce, and web streaming. OpenAI has pointed to India’s rapidly growing adoption of ChatGPT as a sign of the market’s importance. Indian conglomerates Reliance and Tata Group are also among its early partners in the market.

The company has simultaneously ramped up hiring in India, with openings including AI deployment engineers, developer experience engineers, a developer marketing lead, a partner director, and solutions engineers. India has emerged as one of the key battlegrounds for U.S. AI companies, driven by its vast developer base, more than a billion internet users, and surging demand for generative AI.

Rival Anthropic opened its India office in Bengaluru in late 2025 and earlier this year named former Microsoft India managing director Irina Ghose as its India head. Why this matters: OpenAI's aggressive expansion in India signals the country's growing importance in the global AI ecosystem. By appointing a seasoned executive like Prabhjeet Singh, OpenAI is poised to make significant inroads in the Indian market.

This move will likely intensify competition among AI companies vying for a share of India's vast developer base and surging demand for generative AI. As OpenAI continues to build its presence in India, it will be crucial for the company to navigate the country's complex regulatory landscape and establish meaningful partnerships with local businesses and governments. The success of OpenAI's Indian operations will have far-reaching implications for the company's global growth and its ability to compete with rival AI firms.