OpenAI taps Uber India chief to lead its largest market outside the US

OpenAI is making another clear big bet on India. It appointed former Uber head of India and South Asia Prabhjit Singh as its first managing director in the country to expand its presence in what it described as its second-largest market after the United States.

Singh, who announced his resignation from Uber on Friday, will join OpenAI in September and will report to Kiran Mani, the company’s managing director for the Asia-Pacific region, 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.

This hire marks OpenAI’s latest investment in India. Company It opened its first office in New Delhi She said last August and earlier this year that she would do so Setting up new offices in Mumbai and Bengaluru. In 2024, it hired Pragya Misra, former CEO of Truecaller and Meta, to lead public policy and partnerships before expanding her role to head of strategy and global affairs last year. OpenAI was earlier He brought in former Twitter India chief Rishi Jaitley As a senior advisor to help establish its engagement with the Indian government on AI policy.

Over the past few months, OpenAI has struck partnerships across the country Higher education, Enterprise payments, AI-powered tradingand Web streamingwhile He also became a part From the country The construction of data centers is increasing. OpenAI has pointed out India’s rapidly increasing adoption of ChatGPT As evidence of the importance of the market. Indian conglomerates Reliance and the Tata Group are also among its early partners in the market.

The company has simultaneously ramped up recruitment in India, with Slots Including AI Deployment Engineers, Developer Experience Engineers, Developer Marketing Lead, Partner Manager, and Solution Architects.

India has emerged as one of the key battlegrounds for US AI companies, driven by its vast developer base, more than a billion internet users, and growing demand for generative AI. Anthropic rival It opened its India office in Bengaluru In late 2025 and early this year It has appointed former Microsoft India Managing Director Irina Ghose As its president India.