OpenAI has appointed Hyderabad-born Uday Ruddarraju to lead its data centre and computing infrastructure operations as Sachin Katti prepares to step down from the role over the next few weeks.

Ruddarraju will oversee the computing capacity, data centres and infrastructure required to develop and run OpenAI’s artificial intelligence (AI) models. He will report to OpenAI president Greg Brockman and manage infrastructure engineering, data centre projects and relationships with commercial partners.

Ruddarraju is an engineering graduate from Chaitanya Bharathi Institute of Technology (CBIT) in Hyderabad. After completing his degree in computer science, he undertook several internships, including one at Amazon, before moving to the United States for a master’s degree in computer science at the University of Minnesota.

He began his professional career in 2013 as a software engineer at eBay, where he worked on cloud infrastructure. During his five years at the company, he moved into senior technical roles and worked on cloud systems and platforms.

In 2018, Ruddarraju joined financial technology company Robinhood as a staff software engineer. He spent nearly six years there and eventually became senior director of engineering and head of infrastructure. He led infrastructure teams as the company expanded its operations and user base.

In 2024, he joined Elon Musk’s AI company xAI as head of infrastructure engineering. His work involved building large-scale computing systems required to train AI models, including those used by the Grok chatbot.

Ruddarraju joined OpenAI in July 2025 as head of compute and infrastructure. In July 2026, he was promoted to chief technology officer for compute. He has since worked with the company’s engineering, construction and technical teams, along with executives from its commercial partners, including Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang.

In his new role, Ruddarraju will focus on expanding OpenAI’s computing capacity and overseeing the infrastructure projects needed to support its growing AI operations. The appointment also places him in charge of managing commercial relationships as the company works to secure the computing power required to develop and operate advanced AI models.

Meanwhile, Katti, who joined OpenAI from Intel in November 2025, will remain with the company as an adviser after stepping down from his current role.

During his tenure, Katti oversaw several major infrastructure projects, including an 8-gigawatt project in Ohio involving SB Energy and Nvidia. He also worked on a data centre in Georgia that became the first to be designed and led by OpenAI.

Following the leadership change, OpenAI’s GPT-Infra initiative, which uses the company’s AI models to help develop semiconductors and infrastructure, will come under chip chief Richard Ho.

The change comes as OpenAI continues to expand the data centres and computing infrastructure needed to support its AI models. Ruddarraju will now be responsible for overseeing these efforts as the company works to increase its computing capacity and strengthen its infrastructure partnerships.