OpenAI appoints former Uber India chief as first India MD

OpenAI is doubling down on India with the appointment of Prabhjeet Singh, former Uber India and South Asia president, as its first managing director for the country. 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. He will be responsible for driving OpenAI's performance in India across consumer growth, enterprise adoption, partnerships, regulatory engagement, and operations. The hire follows OpenAI’s broader expansion in India, including opening its first office in New Delhi last August and plans for new offices in Mumbai and Bengaluru. The company has also hired former Truecaller and Meta executive Pragya Misra to lead public policy, and former Twitter India head Rishi Jaitly as a senior adviser on AI policy.

India has emerged as a critical battleground for US AI companies, driven by its vast developer base, over a billion internet users, and surging demand for generative AI. OpenAI has already struck partnerships in education, enterprise payments, AI-powered commerce, and web streaming, and is participating in the country’s data center build-out. Indian conglomerates Reliance and Tata Group are early enterprise partners. The company is also ramping up hiring in India, with openings for AI deployment engineers, developer experience engineers, and more. Rival Anthropic opened its India office in Bengaluru in late 2024 and named former Microsoft India MD Irina Ghose as its India head earlier this year, intensifying the competition for talent and market share.