Chris Malone, who oversaw OpenAI’s data center deployments, stepped down last week. Malone, who joined the company as head of data centers in March 2025, is the latest senior executive to depart ahead of an IPO expected in 2027. Denise Dresser, Brad Lightcap and Fidji Simo had also left the company in recent weeks.
Following a difficult start to the Stargate project, OpenAI shifted its data center strategy toward projects in which it leases entire facilities from cloud providers. The company also appointed Uday Ruddarraju and Brent Mayo to oversee infrastructure. OpenAI, which raised its projected spending on computing power from approximately 600 billion dollars to 750 billion dollars, signed an agreement with SoftBank’s SB Energy to lease a 10-gigawatt data center in Ohio.
Why it matters
Malone’s departure raises questions about continuity in infrastructure management at a time when OpenAI has increased its spending forecast to expand data center capacity and shifted to a leasing-focused model. Although the appointments of Uday Ruddarraju and Brent Mayo indicate that responsibility has passed to new executives, it has not been disclosed how Malone’s work was handed over. When considered alongside the other senior-level departures in recent weeks, the change makes the management structure an issue to watch for employees, business partners and potential investors ahead of the IPO expected in 2027. The large-scale leasing agreement in Ohio and the increased spending forecast also expand the operational scope that the new infrastructure team will assume.
Term: data center
A data center is a facility where servers are housed with cooling and an uninterrupted electricity supply; discussions about the electricity and water consumption of artificial intelligence investments center on these facilities.