OpenAI has appointed Prabhjeet Singh, the former president of Uber India and South Asia, as its first managing director for India to expand its presence in what the company has described as its second-largest market after the U.S. Singh announced his resignation from Uber on Friday and will join OpenAI in September, the company said.
Role and reporting
Singh will report to Kiran Mani, OpenAI’s managing director for Asia Pacific. His responsibilities will cover OpenAI’s performance in India across consumer growth, enterprise adoption, partnerships, regulatory engagement, and operations.
Part of a broader India push
The hire continues OpenAI’s recent investments in India. The company opened its first office in New Delhi last August and said earlier this year it would establish new offices in Mumbai and Bengaluru. In 2024, OpenAI hired Pragya Misra to lead public policy and partnerships and later expanded her role to head of strategy and global affairs last year. The company also brought on Rishi Jaitly, former head of Twitter India, as a senior adviser to help shape government engagement on AI policy.
Partnerships, projects and local footprint
In recent months, OpenAI has struck partnerships across higher education, enterprise payments, AI-powered commerce and web streaming in India, and has joined the country’s growing data center build-out. OpenAI has pointed to India’s rapidly growing adoption of ChatGPT as evidence of the market’s importance. Early local partners include conglomerates Reliance and Tata Group.
Hiring and competitive landscape
OpenAI 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 become a key battleground for U.S. AI companies due to its large developer base, more than a billion internet users and soaring demand for generative AI.
Rival Anthropic opened its India office in Bengaluru in late 2025 and earlier this year named Irina Ghose, former managing director of Microsoft India, as its India head.
Why it matters
Appointing Prabhjeet Singh signals that OpenAI is committing senior operational leadership to India to strengthen market position, expand partnerships and navigate local regulatory and operational challenges. The move underscores intensifying competition among global AI firms to capture users, infrastructure projects and policy influence in India.
