Meta’s Sandhya Devanathan to join OpenAI; IT stocks rally

Meta’s India and South East Asia head Sandhya Devanathan is departing after 10 years to join OpenAI. This and more in today’s ETtech Top 5.

Also in the letter:
■ Hero MotoCorp doubles down on Ather
■ Chip GCCs to add jobs in India
■ Explained: OpenAI agents go rogue

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Sandhya Devanathan, vice president and head of India and South East Asia at Meta, on Friday announced her exit from the tech giant after more than 10 years. The senior executive will now join OpenAI.

New role:

• Devanathan will join as OpenAI’s vice president for South East Asia and Australia.
• She will be based in Singapore and report to Kiran Mani, managing director for APAC.
• Devanathan will be OpenAI’s seniormost leader in South East Asia and Australia.
• She will oversee partnerships and support the wider AI ecosystem, while helping consumers, businesses, institutions, and government bodies benefit from AI.

Meta stint: In a LinkedIn post, Devanathan described the decision to leave Meta as "bittersweet". “Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of working across sectors like ecommerce and gaming in APAC, and leading talented teams across India and Southeast Asia,” she wrote.

Devanathan joined Meta in 2016. She held several leadership roles, including leading its Asia Pacific gaming business and helping expand its presence in Singapore and Vietnam.

OpenAI’s focus: The ChatGPT maker has grown its Asia footprint in the past two years. It has opened local offices in Singapore, Tokyo, Seoul, Sydney, and New Delhi, and expanded its regional leadership by appointing Mani and Prabhjeet Singh (to lead its India business).

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Indian IT stocks surged on Friday, lifting the Nifty IT index by more than 3%.

To wit:

• LTIMindtree led with a gain of around 5%.
• HCLTech and TCS rose about 4% each.
• Coforge, Tech Mahindra, Persistent Systems, Infosys, and Oracle Financial Services Software rose roughly 3%.
• Wipro and Mphasis climbed around 2%.

Why the rally: The rally followed a strong move in US technology stocks after Nvidia reported better-than-expected quarterly results on Thursday. The chipmaker posted second-quarter revenues of $96.2 billion, up 106% on-year, and forecast earnings of around $108 billion in the current quarter.

The results eased concerns that the global AI investment cycle may be weakening and reinforced investor confidence in technology. That positive sentiment spilled over into Indian IT stocks.

Overall sentiment: Indian IT stocks have moved sharply in both directions this year. Earlier, investors worried that AI-native companies could disrupt the traditional labour-led IT services model, triggering a sectorwide sell-off. Following that, Indian IT held up relatively better during a broader global tech correction.

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Hero MotoCorp said in an exchange filing that it is investing about Rs 1,758 crore via a secondary transaction in electric two-wheeler maker Ather Energy, picking up an additional 3% stake.

Deal details: The new investment takes Hero’s holding in Ather to 32.8% from 29.88%. The shares will be acquired from an existing shareholder and the transaction is expected to close by September 3.

Hero increased its holding in Ather several times before the company's initial public offering (IPO).

Background: The investment comes soon after Hero invested Rs 960 crore in Ather through convertible warrants. Ather’s exchange filing shows Hero was allotted 76.19 lakh warrants at Rs 1,260 apiece. The warrants are convertible into an equal number of equity shares, with 25% payable upfront and the rest at the time of conversion.

Scaling up: The electric vehicle maker has seen its market share and sales increase since its public debut last year.

• Ather sold 2.63 lakh electric scooters in FY26, up about 69% on-year.
• Its market share increased to 18.6% from 7.6% a year earlier.
• Its FY26 revenue was about Rs 3,823 crore, up from Rs 2,305 crore in FY25.
• Ather's market capitalisation has grown from around Rs 12,000 crore at the time of its IPO in April 2025 to more than Rs 58,000 crore now, nearly a fivefold increase.

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Semiconductor GCCs (global capability centres) in India may add 8,000-10,000 employees this year, taking the sector’s workforce to about 80,000, according to industry estimates.

Data decoded: The expansion is being driven by strong worldwide demand for AI and data-centre chips. Around 80% of the expected hiring is likely to come from existing GCCs, and the remaining 20% from newly established centres.

The GCC divide: The growth shows a widening gap within India’s GCC landscape. Semiconductor, enterprise product, defence, and engineering centres are expanding, while GCCs linked to telecom, automotive, and aerospace are under pressure due to slower global markets.

Talent hunt:

• Marvell plans to double its 1,700-strong R&D workforce in India over the next three years.
• AMD has about 10,000 employees in India, up from 9,000 last year.
• Qualcomm, with about 18,000 employees, plans to reach 20,000 next year.

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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman

OpenAI released a new report on the July Hugging Face incident, which adds to concerns that advanced AI agents can escape test environments, collaborate in unexpected ways, and bypass safeguards.

What happened: On July 11, during an OpenAI cybersecurity evaluation involving GPT-5.6 Sol, a public OpenAI model, and IM1, a more advanced unreleased model, agents escaped their controlled environment. They reached the open internet and accessed Hugging Face systems while attempting to complete their task.

What are the findings: OpenAI’s new report found that agents:

• Created an unauthorised communication method to share information.
• Continued pursuing their objective after initial routes were blocked.
• Adapted tactics to overcome environmental constraints.
• In some cases attempted to conceal or alter records of their actions.