OpenAI names Prabhjeet Singh first India managing director

OpenAI named former Uber India and South Asia president Prabhjeet Singh as its first managing director for India, placing a senior executive in the country as it expands offices, hiring and partnerships in one of its fastest-growing markets. Singh is expected to join in September 2026 and will report to Kiran Mani, OpenAI’s managing director for Asia Pacific.

The appointment gives OpenAI its most senior local leader in India at a moment when the company has been broadening its footprint beyond product access. Singh is expected to oversee consumer growth, enterprise adoption, strategic partnerships, regulatory engagement and operations, a portfolio that signals the company is treating India not just as a user base but as a market that demands commercial execution and policy management.

India has become central to OpenAI’s global strategy. Sam Altman said in February 2026 that India had 100 million weekly ChatGPT users, making it OpenAI’s second-largest market after the United States. OpenAI also launched OpenAI for India at the India AI Impact Summit in Delhi on February 18, 2026, saying it was building the initiative with leading Indian partners to expand access to AI and strengthen the ecosystem.

The company had already said in August 2025 that it planned to open its first India office in New Delhi by the end of 2025, and it began hiring locally for sales leadership roles. The positions included account directors for digital natives, large enterprise and strategics, a sign that OpenAI was building a broader commercial operation around its products rather than relying only on remote management.

OpenAI has tied its India expansion to the government’s IndiaAI mission and said the move reflects support for that effort. It has also said it is working with Tata Group on sovereign AI capabilities and local, AI-ready data center capacity as part of its global Stargate initiative. Those partnerships suggest the company is trying to secure both market access and the infrastructure needed to serve a large base of Indian users and enterprise customers.

Singh arrives after roughly 11 years at Uber, where he led India and South Asia operations. His move underscores how aggressively OpenAI is deepening its presence in a country that has become a test case for its commercial reach, regulatory posture and long-term political weight in the global AI race.