NewsDesk Your trusted news source
Uday Ruddarraju, the former head of infrastructure engineering at Elon Musk’s xAI, has stepped down from his role after more than a year with the company.
During his tenure, he played a pivotal role in developing Colossus—a massive supercomputing cluster powered by over 200,000 GPUs—and contributed to the training of Grok 3, one of xAI’s most advanced AI models.
Ruddarraju confirmed his exit in a post on X (formerly Twitter), reflecting on his time at the company.
“After an unforgettable ride, I’ve decided to move on from @xAI,” he wrote. “When I first joined, I thought everyone was absolutely nuts for thinking we could deploy 100K GPUs in four months, especially without a fully operational site. Watching us not only achieve that but double it—and successfully train Grok 3—made me incredibly proud… and very happy to be wrong.”
He praised Elon Musk and the xAI team, stating, “Thank you @elonmusk and everyone at xAI for the rare opportunity to help build something truly foundational with Colossus. It was a privilege to be part of a mission this bold and to witness firsthand what relentless focus and execution look like.” He added that reporting directly to Musk was “definitely the best part about working at xAI.”
Ruddarraju also expressed gratitude to the infrastructure and research teams, calling them “the best” and acknowledging their efforts in meeting “impossible expectations.”
“Building Colossus and training Grok 3 will forever be career highlights,” he said.
Shortly after his exit from xAI, OpenAI President Greg Brockman announced Ruddarraju’s move to OpenAI in a post on X, welcoming him alongside three other engineers. Ruddarraju reposted the announcement with the comment, “Excited to join you, Greg Brockman!”
His departure marks the end of a significant chapter at xAI, where his contributions helped push the boundaries of AI infrastructure. Now, at OpenAI, he is set to take on new challenges in the rapidly evolving AI landscape.
