Observed Signal · Jun 26, 2026 · Hiring · Source: techcrunch · Impact: 3/5 · Sentiment: Positive
OpenAI hires Uber India chief to lead India
OpenAI has appointed Prabhjeet Singh, the former Uber India and South Asia president, as its first managing director for India. Singh will join OpenAI in September and report to Kiran Mani, OpenAI’s managing director for Asia Pacific, overseeing consumer growth, enterprise adoption, partnerships, regulatory engagement and operations across the country. The hire is part of OpenAI’s broader expansion in India following its New Delhi office opening in 2025 and plans for Mumbai and Bengaluru offices, alongside partnerships with Indian conglomerates such as Reliance and Tata Group and recent commercial collaborations across education, payments, commerce and streaming. Singh’s appointment underscores OpenAI’s push to scale its presence in what it calls its second-largest market after the U.S.
OpenAI appointing a senior local leader signals a material commercial and regulatory push into India — a major market for AI adoption and potential new channels for monetization and partnerships — but it is an expansion step rather than an industry‑shifting policy or product launch.
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Key Takeaways & Evidence Grounding
- OpenAI appointed Prabhjeet Singh as its first managing director for India.
- Prabhjeet Singh will join OpenAI in September and report to Kiran Mani, OpenAI’s managing director for Asia Pacific.
- Singh will be responsible for OpenAI’s performance in India across consumer growth, enterprise adoption, partnerships, regulatory engagement and operations.
- OpenAI opened its first office in New Delhi in August 2025 and announced plans for offices in Mumbai and Bengaluru.
- Indian conglomerates Reliance and Tata Group are early partners of OpenAI in India.
Connected Companies & Entities
8 Entities mapped“OpenAI is making yet another big, visible bet on India. It has appointed former Uber India and South Asia president Prabhjeet Singh as its f...”
“It has appointed former Uber India and South Asia president Prabhjeet Singh as its first managing director for the country......”
“In 2024, it hired former Truecaller and Meta executive Pragya Misra to lead public policy and partnerships before expanding her role to head...”
“In 2024, it hired former Truecaller and Meta executive Pragya Misra to lead public policy and partnerships before expanding her role to head...”
“Indian conglomerates Reliance and Tata Group are also among its early partners in the market....”
“Over the past few months, OpenAI struck partnerships in the nation spanning higher education, enterprise payments, AI-powered commerce, and ...”
“Rival Anthropic opened its India office in Bengaluru in late 2025 and earlier this year named former Microsoft India managing director Irina...”
“Rival Anthropic ... earlier this year named former Microsoft India managing director Irina Ghose as its India head....”
Related Market Signals & Shifts
Recent verified developments and strategic activity across this market segment.
Uber to Open Two India Campuses, Build Data Center
Uber announced plans to open two new engineering campuses in Bengaluru and Hyderabad with combined capacity for about 9,600 people by the end of 2027, and said it has partnered with the Adani Group to build its first data center in India, expected online in Q4 2026. The moves were revealed during CEO Dara Khosrowshahi’s visit to India. Uber currently employs around 3,500 people in India and said it will continue hiring technical talent across generative AI, machine learning, autonomous vehicle operations and back-end infrastructure as it expands its engineering and product-development footprint.
Meta VP Sandhya Devanathan Joins OpenAI
Sandhya Devanathan, Meta’s vice president for India and Southeast Asia, is leaving Meta to join OpenAI and will be based in Singapore reporting to OpenAI’s Asia‑Pacific managing director Kiran Mani. At OpenAI she will oversee consumer growth, enterprise adoption, partnerships, regulatory engagement and operations across Southeast Asia and Australia. The move follows other recent OpenAI hires in the region, including Prabhjeet Singh as India head, as OpenAI expands its Asia‑Pacific footprint with offices in Singapore, Tokyo, Seoul, Sydney and Delhi. After Devanathan’s departure Meta’s India managing director Arun Srinivas will report to Benjamin Joe, Meta’s vice president for Asia‑Pacific. The change comes as Meta faces growing scrutiny from Indian authorities over content moderation and child safety issues.
OpenAI Launches New Initiative for India
At the India AI Impact Summit 2026 in Delhi (Feb 18, 2026), OpenAI announced 'OpenAI for India,' a nationwide initiative with Indian partners—beginning with Tata Group—to expand AI access, build local infrastructure, accelerate enterprise adoption, and support workforce upskilling. As part of its Stargate initiative, OpenAI will be the first customer of Tata Consultancy Services’ HyperVault data center business, starting with 100 megawatts of capacity with potential to scale to 1 gigawatt to enable local, secure model inference with data residency and lower latency. Tata plans to deploy ChatGPT Enterprise across its employees (starting with hundreds of thousands of TCS employees) and to use OpenAI’s Codex for AI-native software development. OpenAI will expand OpenAI Certifications (with TCS as the first non-US participating organization), provide over 100,000 ChatGPT Edu licenses to Indian institutions, and open offices in Mumbai and Bengaluru later in 2026.
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