Former White House CHIPS Coordinator Ronnie Chatterji Named Open AI’s First Chief Economist
- In this new role, the 46-year-old Indian American will lead research into how Artificial Intelligence will influence economic growth and job creation.
Open AI has named former White House alumni Aaron “Ronnie” Chatterji as its first chief economist, the company announced yesterday (Oct. 22). Currently the Mark Burgess & Lisa Benson-Burgess Distinguished Professor of Business and Public Policy at Duke University he previously worked with the Biden-Harris administration, and played a played a pivotal role in the implementation of the $52 billion CHIPS and Science Act. Politico described him as “a key adviser in the Biden administration’s effort to overcome the global microchips shortage and manage a deluge of congressional funding to expand America’s semiconductor industry.”
In this new role at Open AI, Chatterji, 46, will lead research into how AI will influence economic growth and job creation; including the global economic impacts of building AI infrastructure, insights on longer-term labor market trends, and how to help the current and future workforce harness the benefits of this technology.
The New York Times notes that “the addition of a chief economist is indicative of OpenAI’s enormous ambition and where its executives see their company in the tech industry’s pecking order.” The company “hopes to eventually build AI that changes office work, scientific research and many other tasks, and the company acknowledges that its technologies could eventually replace some workers,” The Times adds. “The company has also spent months negotiating with investors, chipmakers and governments around the world to build new chip-making plants and expand the pool of computer data centers used to build advanced AI,” the report adds.
In a statement, Chatterji said his “career has focused on studying how innovation and entrepreneurship shape our economy and society, and I am excited to apply my skills to support OpenAI’s mission to ensure that the benefits of artificial intelligence are widely distributed.” He said he looks forward “to contributing to research that helps inform how we transition to an AI-driven economy.”
Chatterji joined the Commerce Department as chief economist just a few months into Biden’s term and moved to the NEC last year where he served as the White House Coordinator for CHIPS Implementation. He “managed the work of the CHIPS Implementation Steering Council,” and “worked closely with the National Security Council, the Office of Science and Technology Policy, the Department of Commerce and the Steering Council to ensure effective interagency coordination,” the White House said.
Before his role as the CHIPS coordinator, Chatterjee served as acting deputy director of the White House National Economic Council; and as the chief economist of the US Department of Commerce. He also served as a senior economist on President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers and on multiple statewide advisory commissions on economic policy in North Carolina.
At Duke, Chatterji’s research explored the intersection of public policy and business, including a focus on the drivers that enable success for innovative firms and new startups. His work has been published in top journals in strategic management, economics, finance and organizational studies. He received the 2017 Kauffman Prize Medal for Distinguished Research in Entrepreneurship, the Rising Star award from the Aspen Institute, and the Strategic Management Society Emerging Scholar Award, as well as numerous teaching awards. He was previously a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations and worked as a financial analyst at Goldman Sachs. Chatterji and his wife, Neely, have three children.