OpenAI's compute chief Sachin Katti is leaving after about a year, with former xAI executive Uday Ruddarraju taking over infrastructure
*OPENAI COMPUTE CHIEF TO LEAVE COMPANY AFTER ABOUT A YR, SOURCES SAY
Context
Whoever runs OpenAI's compute runs its biggest spending line, so a second leadership change in its data center effort this year matters for its Stargate buildout.
This is a secondhand headline from Walter Bloomberg citing unnamed sources; Bloomberg first reported the change, according to Data Center Dynamics. Katti joined OpenAI from Intel in November 2025 and took over the Stargate data center effort in March, per Data Center Dynamics. Rohan Paul's summary of the Bloomberg report says Katti will stay on as an adviser.
- Rohan Paul on X: Bloomberg says Ruddarraju takes over Katti's infrastructure business
- Bloomberg Law: OpenAI names Ruddarraju to lead data center, computing unit
- Data Center Dynamics: OpenAI again shakes up data center leadership
- Quartz: OpenAI computing chief Sachin Katti is set to leave
- CNBC: OpenAI's Sachin Katti to leave infrastructure role, stay on as advisor
Deep dive
On October 14, Walter Bloomberg posted that OpenAI's compute chief is leaving the company after about a year, citing sources.
Rohan Paul's summary of the Bloomberg report adds detail: OpenAI has put Uday Ruddarraju, its CTO of compute, in charge of the infrastructure business Katti ran, and Katti will leave the role over the next few weeks and stay on as an adviser. Ruddarraju came to OpenAI in July 2025 from xAI, where he led infrastructure engineering for both xAI and X, and was named CTO of compute in July 2026.
Data Center Dynamics reports that Ruddarraju will run OpenAI's Stargate and other data center efforts. It says that when Katti was promoted to lead Stargate, data center heads Peter Hoeschele, Keith Heyde, Shamez Hemani and Chris Malone left the company, and that under Katti OpenAI expanded its cloud partnerships while in house data center projects remained slow to come online. DCD also reports that Ruddarraju's team has added several former xAI employees, including head of data center build and delivery Brent Mayo.
Quartz, citing The Wall Street Journal, reports that Ruddarraju reports to President Greg Brockman, and that Katti's exit follows other senior departures, including Chief Revenue Officer Denise Dresser and Chief Operating Officer Brad Lightcap, whose exits were announced in August. DCD says OpenAI projects spending about $750 billion on computing power through 2030, up from an earlier estimate of roughly $600 billion.
What to expect next
Watch whether the leadership change speeds up OpenAI's own data center projects, which DCD describes as slow to come online, or shifts more capacity toward cloud partners.
Also watch for more hires from xAI into OpenAI's infrastructure team, and whether further executive departures follow as OpenAI prepares for a possible public offering and works through its roughly $750 billion compute plan.