OpenAI has made a significant strategic move to bolster its presence in India, appointing Prabhjeet Singh, formerly the president of Uber India and South Asia, as its first managing director for the country. Singh, who announced his departure from Uber on Friday, is set to join OpenAI in September, reporting to Kiran Mani, the company's managing director for Asia Pacific.
His remit will be broad, encompassing the full spectrum of OpenAI's operations in India. This includes driving consumer growth and enterprise adoption of its AI technologies, fostering new partnerships, engaging with regulatory bodies, and overseeing general operations. This appointment signals OpenAI's intent to substantially scale its footprint in India, a market it has identified as its largest outside of the United States.
This hire is the latest in a series of strategic investments by OpenAI in the Indian market. The company established its first office in New Delhi last August and has since announced plans for further expansion with new offices in Mumbai and Bengaluru. Earlier this year, OpenAI brought in Pragya Misra, an executive with experience at Truecaller and Meta, to lead public policy and partnerships, a role that was subsequently expanded to head of strategy and global affairs. Rishi Jaitly, formerly of Twitter India, also joined as a senior adviser to facilitate engagement with the Indian government on AI policy.
Over recent months, OpenAI has forged numerous partnerships across various sectors in India, including higher education, enterprise payments, AI-powered commerce, and web streaming. It has also become involved in the country's burgeoning data centre infrastructure development. The rapid adoption of ChatGPT by Indian users has been cited by OpenAI as a key indicator of the market's strategic importance, with major Indian conglomerates like Reliance and Tata Group already established as early partners.
The company has simultaneously intensified its recruitment efforts in India, advertising roles for AI deployment engineers, developer experience engineers, a developer marketing lead, a partner director, and solutions engineers. India's vast developer base, over a billion internet users, and surging demand for generative AI have positioned it as a critical battleground for leading US AI companies, with rivals such as Anthropic also establishing a significant presence in the country.