OpenAI has registered another departure of a high-level executive. Chris Malone, who supervised the organization's data center area, left the company last week. This resignation occurs during a period of intense expansion of the infrastructure required to support the company's artificial intelligence (AI) systems.
Malone joined OpenAI in March 2025, shortly after the announcement of the Stargate project. This project was developed in collaboration with Oracle and SoftBank with the aim of increasing the data center capacity essential for the growth of the company's AI models. Previously, Malone worked as a prominent engineer at Meta, where he led the data center strategy, in addition to holding engineering and technology director roles at Google.
His departure comes as OpenAI undergoes a restructuring in its infrastructure sector and is drastically increasing investments in computing power. Currently, the company forecasts expenses of about US$ 750 billion (equivalent to approximately R$ 3.86 trillion) in computing capacity by 2030, an amount higher than the previous estimate of about US$ 600 billion (R$ 3.08 trillion).
Infrastructure Reorganization
Before this reorganization, Malone reported directly to Greg Brockman, President of OpenAI. Earlier this year, the company reformed its infrastructure structure, designating Sachin Katti as the leader of the broader area, which is also subordinate to Brockman.
Malone and Adrian Caulfield began collaborating as co-leaders of a team focused on technical development and data center projects. OpenAI has implemented other structural changes recently. In July, Uday Ruddarraju was promoted to Director of Computational Capacity, reporting to Brockman. Brent Mayo, hired from xAI earlier this year, began reporting to Ruddarraju and was tasked with ensuring that the company's computing projects were completed on time.
Ruddarraju and Mayo participated in the construction of the Colossus supercomputers, created by xAI, Elon Musk's company, located in Memphis, USA. In a statement, OpenAI justified the change by saying it reorganized its infrastructure area to keep pace with the scale and pace of its work. The company stated: 'We have a strong and deeply experienced data center team, with clear leadership and technical knowledge to execute our plans.'
Other Changes and Challenges
Malone's departure adds to a series of executive departures at OpenAI in 2026. In recent weeks, the company lost Denise Dresser, Director of Revenue, Brad Lightcap, Chief Operating Officer, and Fidji Simo, who held a prominent position and was seen as one of the key executives close to CEO Sam Altman.
This succession of changes occurs while OpenAI works on a potential public stock offering, expected in 2027, and seeks to expand its presence in the corporate market, where it competes with rivals such as Anthropic. Despite these departures, the company assures that the restructuring will not affect its infrastructure plans.
The relevance of the area managed by Malone grows considering the magnitude of the investments planned by OpenAI. The projection for computing capacity spending by 2030 was raised to approximately US$ 750 billion (R$ 3.86 trillion), surpassing the initial estimate of US$ 600 billion. This expansion covers both the creation and operation of new facilities and the hiring of third-party services, aiming to ensure sufficient capacity to train and run increasingly complex AI models.
In this context, the departure of the executive responsible for a crucial part of the data center strategy coincides with the acceleration of OpenAI's infrastructure commitments. However, the company assures maintaining an experienced team and a well-defined leadership structure to drive the expansion of its data centers.
