Credit: Levart_Photographer on Unsplash OpenAI has put its compute and infrastructure businesses under Uday Ruddarraju, who ran infrastructure at Elon Musk’s xAI until July 2025. Sachin Katti, who had been overseeing infrastructure and led the $30B Georgia build, leaves the role within weeks and stays on as an adviser. OpenAI has put compute and infrastructure under one executive. Uday Ruddarraju, who ran infrastructure at Elon Musk’s xAI, takes both.
Sachin Katti, who had been overseeing infrastructure, leaves within weeks. Bloomberg reported the change on Wednesday. Katti plans to stay on as an adviser, and the business leaders under him keep their jobs. Ruddarraju joined OpenAI in July 2025 and became chief technology officer for compute this July.
At xAI he worked on the Grok 3 training run across 100,000 GPUs. “Sachin has done an incredible job maintaining the commercial partnerships,” he told Bloomberg. He expects a smooth handover, and said he must now spend more time on the commercial side. The appointment names someone OpenAI would not name in August. When it confirmed that its data centre chief had left, it had already hired a compute CTO but would not say who.
It was Ruddarraju. Chris Malone was not the only exit. Peter Hoeschele, central to Stargate, left for Meta earlier this year with two colleagues. Data Center Dynamics names Keith Heyde and Shamez Hemani.
Katti arrived from Intel late last year, where he was chief technology and AI officer, and the same outlet dates his Stargate takeover to March. He oversaw the $30B Georgia site, the first OpenAI designed and led itself. He also oversaw an 8-gigawatt project in Ohio with SB Energy and Nvidia. Nvidia has guaranteed up to $105B in lease and power payments there, Axios reported from a securities filing.
Katti had also run GPT-Infra since July, which uses OpenAI models for work such as designing semiconductors. That effort moves to Richard Ho, the company’s chip chief, who said this month he does not fully trust the models’ design changes. “I’m proud of what we’ve built and have total confidence in Uday and the team,” Katti said. He is looking forward to building something new. What Ruddarraju inherits is almost entirely American.
OpenAI paused Stargate UK in April, citing British electricity prices more than four times US levels and unresolved copyright rules. The UK government called the decision disappointing. The Guardian later reported that OpenAI had never visited the north-east England site it announced. OpenAI’s one announced European site is a 230-megawatt data centre in Norway, revealed in July 2025.
Ohio alone is about 35 times larger. Most of the $856B compute bill shown to investors will be spent across the Atlantic. Get the TNW newsletter ✕ Close Get the TNW newsletter Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.
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