OpenAI is making another major, highly visible move in India. The company has appointed Prabhjeet Singh, the former president of Uber India and South Asia, as its first managing director for the country. This move is aimed at expanding OpenAI’s presence in what it describes as its second-largest market, following the United States.

In this newly created role, Singh will oversee OpenAI’s performance across India, focusing on consumer growth, enterprise adoption, partnerships, regulatory engagement, and overall operations, the company confirmed. This hire is the latest in a series of investments OpenAI has made in the region. The company opened its first office in New Delhi last August, and earlier this year, it announced plans to establish new offices in Mumbai and Bengaluru.

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In 2024, OpenAI hired Pragya Misra, a former executive at Truecaller and Meta, to lead public policy and partnerships. She later had her role expanded to include head of strategy and global affairs last year. Prior to that, the company brought on Rishi Jaitly, former head of Twitter India, as a senior adviser to help build relationships with the Indian government on AI policy.

Over the past several months, OpenAI has forged partnerships across India in areas such as higher education, enterprise payments, AI-powered commerce, and web streaming. It has also become part of the country’s expanding data center infrastructure. OpenAI points to India’s rapidly growing adoption of ChatGPT as a key indicator of the market’s importance. Major Indian conglomerates like Reliance and Tata Group are among its early partners in the region.

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The company has simultaneously stepped up hiring in India, with job openings for AI deployment engineers, developer experience engineers, a developer marketing lead, a partner director, and solutions engineers. India has become a critical battleground for U.S. AI companies, driven by its vast developer base, over a billion internet users, and surging demand for generative AI. Competitor Anthropic opened its India office in Bengaluru in late 2025, and earlier this year named Irina Ghose, former managing director of Microsoft India, as its India head.