OpenAI has appointed former Uber India and South Asia president Prabhjeet Singh as its first managing director for India, strengthening its leadership in one of its largest global markets.

Singh will join the company in September and report to Kiran Mani, OpenAI’s managing director for Asia Pacific.

He will oversee OpenAI’s performance in India across consumer growth, enterprise adoption, partnerships, regulatory engagement and local operations.

Singh announced his departure from Uber on Friday after nearly 11 years at the ride hailing company. He had served as president of Uber India and South Asia since 2020.

The appointment gives OpenAI its most senior local executive as the company accelerates its expansion across India.

OpenAI opened its first Indian office in New Delhi last year and plans to establish additional offices in Mumbai and Bengaluru during 2026.

The company has also expanded its local leadership team. It hired former Truecaller and Meta executive Pragya Misra to oversee public policy and partnerships before broadening her role to lead strategy and global affairs.

Former Twitter India head Rishi Jaitly has also advised OpenAI on its engagement with the Indian government and the country’s developing artificial intelligence policy.

OpenAI has described India as ChatGPT’s second largest market after the United States. The country is also among its largest markets by weekly active users and ranks among the top five countries for API adoption.

The company has increased its investment in the region through education programs, enterprise partnerships and infrastructure agreements.

Its OpenAI for India initiative includes plans to work with local businesses and institutions while expanding access to artificial intelligence tools across the country.

OpenAI is also hiring deployment engineers, developer experience engineers, solutions engineers and partnership executives in India.

The expansion comes as India becomes a major battleground for leading US artificial intelligence companies, supported by a large developer community and more than a billion internet users.

Anthropic appointed former Microsoft India managing director Irina Ghose to lead its Indian operations in January and opened an office in Bengaluru the following month.