OpenAI Names Uday Ruddarraju Head Of Data Centres And Compute

• 17 Oct 2026
• TM Team
• 0 Comments

OpenAI has appointed Uday Ruddarraju to lead its infrastructure and computing businesses, expanding the responsibilities of the Indian-American technology executive as the ChatGPT maker scales up its data centre capacity to support artificial intelligence development.

Ruddarraju, who joined OpenAI in July 2025, was named Chief Technology Officer for Compute in July 2026. He succeeds Sachin Katti, who will step down from his infrastructure leadership role on 15 November and remain with the company as an adviser.

Before joining OpenAI, Ruddarraju worked at Elon Musk’s AI company xAI as head of infrastructure engineering. He previously spent nearly six years at financial technology firm Robinhood, rising to Senior Director of Engineering and Head of Infrastructure. He began his career after studying computer science at Chaitanya Bharathi Institute of Technology in Hyderabad and later pursued higher education at the University of Minnesota.

In his expanded role, Ruddarraju will oversee infrastructure operations, data centre expansion and computing capacity, while strengthening commercial partnerships with technology providers. Speaking to Bloomberg, he said he expected a smooth transition, citing his existing involvement with OpenAI’s engineering, construction and infrastructure teams.

Katti joined OpenAI in November 2025 after serving as Chief Technology and AI Officer at Intel. During his tenure, he oversaw major infrastructure initiatives, including an eight-gigawatt data centre project in Ohio involving SB Energy and Nvidia. OpenAI’s GPT-Infra initiative, which explores the use of AI models in semiconductor and infrastructure development, will move under chip chief Richard Ho.

The appointment follows other departures from OpenAI’s infrastructure division. Chris Malone left in August, while Peter Hoeschele and two colleagues moved to Meta earlier this year.

The leadership change comes as OpenAI ramps up investment in the computing infrastructure required to train and operate advanced AI models. The company’s growing data centre requirements and partnerships have made infrastructure leadership central to its expansion strategy.