OpenAI has named former xAI executive Uday Ruddarraju to lead its infrastructure and compute businesses, marking the latest leadership shakeup for its teams focused on expanding data centre capacity.

Ruddarraju joined OpenAI last year and was appointed as chief technology officer for compute in July. Sachin Katti, who had been overseeing the infrastructure unit, will transition out of his role over the next few weeks and plans to remain as an adviser after that.

OpenAI’s Sam Altman has said the ChatGPT maker will likely spend trillions of dollars on the physical infrastructure needed to develop new AI models and support wider adoption of the technology. In recent months, the teams charged with sourcing, financing and setting up data centre capacity have seen some key departures.

Chris Malone, an executive helping oversee the data centre build-out, left OpenAI in August. Peter Hoeschele, who played a critical role in OpenAI’s high-profile Stargate infrastructure initiative, exited for Meta Platforms Inc. earlier this year, along with two other colleagues.

In an interview, Ruddarraju said he expects the latest leadership change to go smoothly given his prior role working with the engineering, construction and technical parts of the infrastructure group. He has also worked with leaders at OpenAI’s partners, including Nvidia Corp. Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang. The strategy and business leaders under Katti will also remain in their roles, providing stability, he said.

“Sachin has done an incredible job maintaining the commercial partnerships,” he said.

Source link