OpenAI is once again investing big in India. The company has appointed the former president of Uber for India and South Asia, Prabhjeet Singh, as its first country CEO - tasked with expanding its presence in a market the company itself calls the second largest, right after the US. Singh, who announced his departure from Uber, joins in September.

This isn't an isolated move. OpenAI opened its first office in New Delhi last August, and announced new ones in Mumbai and Bangalore too. Behind it stands a whole string of hires - former people from Meta, Truecaller and Twitter are already building the link with the Indian government around artificial-intelligence policy. In recent months partnerships have been struck in higher education, payments, commerce and streaming, and the company has also become part of building data centers in the country.

Why India in particular? Over a billion internet users, a huge base of developers and sharply growing demand for AI. It's terrain no American company wants to let go of. Rival Anthropic opened its office in Bangalore at the end of 2025 and put a former Microsoft India director at the helm.

Behind the pretty growth figures hides an older story - the big players from Silicon Valley are once again carving up markets that aren't theirs. India gets offices, hiring and investment, but also dependence on infrastructure controlled from outside. For the Balkans, which watch such "arrivals" from time to time on a smaller scale, the question is familiar: when a tech giant moves in, who ends up dictating the rules?