OpenAI hires Uber India chief to lead its 100M-user market

OpenAI named former Uber India president Prabhjeet Singh as its first managing director for the country, tapping a decade of local operational experience to scale in a market with 100 million weekly ChatGPT users.

"India is one of Uber's most important markets globally, an important driver of innovation and long-term growth," an Uber spokesperson said, confirming Singh's departure after nearly a decade with the ride-hailing company.

Singh, who joined Uber in 2015 as general manager and head of strategy before rising to president of India and South Asia in 2020, will take the OpenAI role in September. He reports to Kiran Mani, OpenAI's managing director for Asia Pacific, and will oversee consumer growth, enterprise adoption, partnerships, regulatory engagement and operations across the country.

The hire deepens a talent war in India's AI sector. OpenAI has opened an office in New Delhi, plans additional locations in Mumbai and Bengaluru, and has hired executives from Meta, Netflix and Spotify for local roles. Rival Anthropic opened its India office in late 2025 and named former Microsoft India managing director Irina Ghose as its India head, showing both US AI leaders view India's billion-plus internet users as a critical growth battleground.

Singh's appointment follows a string of leadership hires as OpenAI builds out its India operations. The company brought on Pragya Misra, a former Meta and Truecaller executive, to lead public policy and partnerships before expanding her role to head of strategy and global affairs. Sheeladitya Mohanty, formerly at Meta, now leads marketing, while Akash Iyer, who worked at Netflix, heads social media. Vasundhara Mudgil, who handled Spotify India's launch, leads communications. The company is also hiring for AI deployment engineers, developer experience engineers and solutions architects, according to its careers page.

OpenAI has also struck partnerships with Indian conglomerates Reliance and Tata Group, and joined the country's growing data center build-out. India's data center capacity is expected to more than double by 2028, driven by AI workloads and data localization requirements, creating a natural infrastructure opportunity for cloud and AI providers. At the India AI Impact Summit 2026 in Delhi, the company unveiled "OpenAI for India," a nationwide initiative to expand AI access and drive economic impact. The company earlier brought on former Twitter India head Rishi Jaitly as a senior adviser to help establish engagement with the Indian government on AI policy, reflecting the importance of regulatory relationships in a market where AI governance rules are still being shaped.

Singh takes on the role at a time when OpenAI faces growing competition not just from Anthropic but also from domestic Indian AI startups and open-source models that have gained traction among cost-conscious developers. India's price-sensitive market has pushed AI companies to offer tiered pricing and lighter model versions, a dynamic that differs sharply from OpenAI's core US and European markets where enterprise customers pay premium rates for full-featured models. OpenAI's ability to adapt its pricing and product strategy for the Indian market will be a key test of Singh's leadership.

Before Uber, Singh worked at McKinsey & Co. and Lehman Brothers, giving him a blend of consulting, finance and operational experience that OpenAI is betting on to navigate India's complex regulatory and competitive environment. His background mirrors that of other tech leaders who have moved from ride-hailing and e-commerce into AI, as companies seek executives who can manage rapid growth across diverse markets.

For investors, the India push represents both opportunity and cost. OpenAI's 100 million weekly users in the country make it the company's second-largest market, but scaling in India requires navigating price-sensitive consumers, local data regulations and well-funded domestic AI startups. Anthropic's parallel expansion suggests neither company can afford to cede the market, raising the stakes for both talent acquisition and infrastructure investment in the region. India has emerged as a key battleground for US AI companies, driven by its vast developer base, more than a billion internet users and surging demand for generative AI tools. The country's developer community alone represents a significant long-term opportunity, as Indian engineers build applications on top of OpenAI's platform that could drive enterprise adoption across Asia.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.