OpenAI is planning to expand its footprint in India by roping in Rishi Jaitly, former VP of Elon Musk’s X, as reported by TechCrunch. Jaitly will be working as a senior advisor and will be responsible for guiding the company to navigate India’s AI policy and regulatory landscape. 

Though the news is not officially announced by OpenAI, he’s helping the team to set up an office in India. Interestingly, the development is said to have taken place soon after Altman’s inaugural trip to the country in June. 

According to Jaitly’s LinkedIn, his extensive professional journey encompasses diverse roles, including founding the Virginia Tech Institute for Leadership in Technology, where he pioneered the world’s first executive degree in humanities. Currently serving as a distinguished humanities fellow and professor of practice at Virginia Tech, he engages in teaching and leadership at the intersection of humanities and technology. 

As Principal at Alchmy LLC, he focuses on evangelism and excellence for companies globally. Notably, as the Co-Founder & CEO of Times Bridge, he scaled a venture capital business, bringing global ideas to India. Jaitly also played key roles at Twitter (he was India’s first employee), leading operations and partnerships in Asia, and at Google, where he overturned internet censorship and advocated for an open web across India and South Asia. 

Back in June, the company made its first international expansion to London, UK.

During Altman’s visit to India, he found himself unnecessarily entangled in a controversy after declaring it “hopeless” for Indian companies to compete with their American counterparts in AI, later clarifying that his remark was taken out of context; it referred specifically to the challenge of competing with a $10 million budget. In response, CP Gurnani, Tech Mahindra CEO, revealed that the IT giant is working on Project Indus, an indigenous LLM that would have the ability to speak in many Indic languages, most notably Hindi.