OpenAI has appointed Uday Ruddarraju to lead its infrastructure and compute businesses, including the Stargate data center program, replacing Sachin Katti. Ruddarraju joined OpenAI last July as head of compute and infrastructure and was named CTO of Compute this July; he previously served as head of infrastructure engineering at xAI. Katti, who joined from Intel in November 2025 and took over Stargate this March, is expected to remain as an adviser. OpenAI projects spending approximately $750 billion on computing power through 2030, up from an earlier estimate of roughly $600 billion.
The repeated turnover at the top of OpenAI's data center leadership, with multiple executives departing after Katti's own promotion earlier this year, raises questions about execution continuity on Stargate at a time when in-house data center projects remain slow to come online. The influx of former xAI employees into OpenAI's infrastructure division, including Ruddarraju and several named colleagues, represents a significant concentration of talent from one competing organization shaping the buildout of what is projected to be a $750 billion compute investment.
OpenAI replacing its data center leadership with an executive from xAI — a direct competitor — is a significant personnel and strategic signal for AI infrastructure, with high reader interest given OpenAI's massive buildout plans. Named companies (OpenAI, xAI) and named individuals (Uday Ruddarraju, Sachin Katti) are strong selection triggers.