OpenAI names Indian American Uday Ruddarraju to lead infrastructure and computing operations

# OpenAI Appoints Uday Ruddarraju to Lead Infrastructure as Sachin Katti Transitions Out

OpenAI has appointed Uday Ruddarraju to lead its infrastructure and computing operations, placing him in charge of a critical part of the company's efforts to expand the computing capacity needed to develop and operate advanced artificial intelligence systems. He will succeed Sachin Katti, who is transitioning out of his leadership role over the coming weeks but will remain an adviser to the company.

Ruddarraju joined OpenAI in July 2025 after working at Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company, xAI, where he led infrastructure engineering. He was appointed OpenAI's chief technology officer for compute in July 2026, and his expanded responsibilities will include overseeing infrastructure operations and efforts to increase data center capacity.

The leadership change comes as OpenAI continues to pursue the substantial computing resources required to train and run its AI models. As demand for advanced AI services grows, the company is investing in data centers, specialized hardware and supporting infrastructure to accommodate its expanding operations.

Katti joined OpenAI in November 2025 after serving as chief technology and AI officer at Intel. During his tenure, he oversaw major computing infrastructure initiatives and commercial partnerships that supported the company's broader infrastructure strategy.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has said the company expects to spend trillions of dollars on the physical infrastructure required to develop AI systems and support their wider adoption. The scale of these plans underscores the importance of securing computing capacity, building new facilities and maintaining relationships with hardware suppliers and infrastructure partners.

Ruddarraju said he expects the leadership transition to proceed smoothly because of his previous involvement with the engineering, construction and technical teams responsible for infrastructure development. He has also worked with leaders at OpenAI's partners, including Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, giving him familiarity with relationships that are important to the company's computing plans.

According to Ruddarraju, Katti's strategy and business teams are expected to remain in their current positions, helping maintain continuity as responsibilities shift. Ruddarraju also indicated that he would devote greater attention to commercial relationships.

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

Katti's departure from the leadership role follows a period in which OpenAI pursued several large-scale infrastructure initiatives. These included an 8-gigawatt project in Ohio involving SB Energy and Nvidia, as well as a facility in Georgia that OpenAI described as its first data center site designed and led by the company.

In a statement, Katti said he was proud of the work completed during his tenure and expressed confidence in his successor and the broader team.

“I’m proud of what we’ve built and have total confidence in Uday and the team to carry it forward,” Katti said, adding that he looked forward to building something new.

The transition also follows other departures from OpenAI's infrastructure organization. Chris Malone, an executive involved in the company's data center expansion, left in August. Peter Hoeschele, who played a significant role in the Stargate infrastructure initiative, departed for Meta Platforms earlier this year alongside two colleagues.

These personnel changes come as major AI developers compete to secure the infrastructure needed to support increasingly capable models. Access to computing resources, reliable hardware supply chains and large-scale data center capacity has become central to the industry's expansion.

For OpenAI, Ruddarraju's appointment places infrastructure execution and computing operations under a leader with experience in engineering and technical development. His responsibilities will involve coordinating the teams and partnerships needed to expand capacity while supporting the company's growing AI operations.

As OpenAI continues to pursue ambitious infrastructure projects, the transition marks a change in leadership at a time when computing capacity and commercial partnerships remain essential to its long-term development plans.