OpenAI has appointed Uday Ruddarraju, a former executive at Elon Musk’s AI company xAI, to lead its computing and infrastructure businesses.

The move comes as the ChatGPT maker steps up investment in data centres capacity needed to develop and run advanced AI models.

The Indian American technology executive is taking charge of a key part of OpenAI’s operations, overseeing the infrastructure needed to support its research and product development.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Ruddarraju joined OpenAI in 2025 and became its chief technology officer for compute in July 2026. His latest role expands his responsibilities across the company’s computing and infrastructure operations.

Sachin Katti, who led the infrastructure unit, will step down from the role over the next few weeks and continue as an adviser to the company, reported Bloomberg.

In an interview with Bloomberg, Ruddarraju said that his previous experience working across engineering, construction and technical operations within infrastructure group would help ensure a smooth transition.

Ruddarraju was born in Hyderabad and studied at the Chaitanya Bharathi Institute of Technology (CBIT) before pursuing further studies at the University of Minnesota. Prior to joining OpenAI, Ruddarraju worked at xAI, where he gained experience in infrastructure engineering and large-scale computing systems.

In a LinkedIn post announcing his role as CTO of Compute, Ruddarraju said technical decisions, commercial strategy, supply chains and delivery need to work together as the company expands its computing capabilities.

Ruddarraju’s role will involve overseeing infrastructure operations and strengthening commercial partnerships with major technology providers, including Nvidia.

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