OpenAI is making another big, visible bet on India. It has appointed former Uber India and South Asia president Prabhjeet Singh as its first CEO for the country as it scales up its presence in what it calls its second largest market after the US.
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, the company told TechCrunch. He will be responsible for OpenAI’s performance in India across consumer growth, enterprise adoption, partnerships, regulatory engagement and operations, the company said.
The hiring marks OpenAI’s latest investment in India. The company opened its first office in New Delhi last August and earlier this year said it would setting up new offices in Mumbai and Bangalore. In 2024, it hired former Truecaller and Meta executive Pragya Misra to lead public policy and partnerships before expanding her role as head of strategy and global affairs last year. OpenAI had earlier brought in former Twitter India head Rishi Jaitly as a senior adviser to help establish its engagement with the Indian government on AI policy.
In recent months, OpenAI has forged partnerships in the nation spanning higher education, business payments, AI commerce and web streaming, while also becoming part of the nation’s growing data center establishment. OpenAI has pointed to India’s rapidly growing adoption of ChatGPT as an indication of the importance of the market. Indian conglomerates Reliance and Tata Group are also among its early market partners.
The company simultaneously increased hiring in India, with openings including AI development engineers, engineer with developer experience, lead developer marketing, partner manager and solution engineers.
India has emerged as one of the key battlegrounds for US AI companies, driven by its huge developer base, more than a billion internet users and growing demand for AI. Rival Anthropic opened its India office in Bangalore in late 2025 and earlier this year appointed former Microsoft India CEO Irina Ghose as India head.
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