Indian-American influence in US information technology growing, Uday Ruddaraju appointed head of OpenAI’s data center
LOS ANGELES:- OpenAI has appointed Indian-American Uday Reddy, a former executive at X (formerly Twitter), to lead its infrastructure and computing business. This move comes as the creator of ChatGPT accelerates the expansion of its data centers and prepares to make significant investments in AI infrastructure. Indian-American technology executive Uday Ruddaraju has been entrusted with responsibility for a key part of OpenAI’s operations. Ruddaraju will oversee the computing capacity required to develop and deploy advanced artificial intelligence models.
According to Bloomberg, Ruddararaju joined OpenAI in 2025 and was appointed Chief Technology Officer for Compute in July 2026. His latest promotion expands his responsibilities to encompass the company’s infrastructure and compute businesses.
Before joining OpenAI, Ruddararaju worked at xAI—Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company—bringing with him experience in infrastructure engineering and large-scale computing systems. Speaking to Bloomberg, Ruddararaju noted that he expects the leadership transition to proceed smoothly, given his prior work with OpenAI’s engineering, construction, and technical infrastructure teams. He also highlighted the continuity among the company’s strategic and business leaders.
Furthermore, in a LinkedIn post announcing his appointment as CTO of Compute, Ruddaraju highlighted the engineering challenges involved in expanding OpenAI’s computing capabilities—a role that has led to him being entrusted with significant responsibility for OpenAI’s data centers.
Ruddaraju has succeeded Sachin Katti, who will step down from his role leading infrastructure in the coming weeks but will remain an advisor to OpenAI. Katti joined OpenAI about a year ago, following his tenure as Chief Technology and AI Officer at Intel. He oversaw major infrastructure initiatives, including an eight-gigawatt project in Ohio—involving SB Energy and Nvidia—as well as a data center in Georgia that was designed and led by OpenAI.
Katti also oversaw GPT-Infra, an initiative exploring how OpenAI models can assist in semiconductor and infrastructure development. Bloomberg has reported that this work will now fall under Richard Ho, OpenAI’s head of chips.
Other departures have also affected the infrastructure team. Bloomberg reported that Chris Malone left in August, while Peter Hoschel departed for Meta earlier this year.
The leadership change comes as OpenAI moves forward with ambitious plans to expand its computing capabilities. CEO Sam Altman has indicated that the company could spend trillions of dollars on the physical infrastructure required to develop future AI models.
Citing CNBC, Reuters reported that OpenAI was expected to spend approximately $600 billion on computing by 2030.
Ruddaraju will oversee infrastructure operations, while also strengthening business partnerships—including those with major technology providers like Nvidia.
His appointment underscores the growing strategic importance of data centers and computing capacity as OpenAI competes to build and deploy increasingly powerful AI systems.
