# Oklo Small modular reactor startup developing compact fast-fission reactors, founded in 2013 by Jacob DeWitte and Caroline Cochran. Headquartered in Santa Clara, CA and traded on the NYSE under ticker OKLO. The company went public in May 2024 through a SPAC merger with AltC Acquisition Corp, a special-purpose vehicle co-founded by [[Sam Altman]] and ex-Citigroup executive Michael Klein. The deal valued Oklo at $850M and provided $500M in capital. ## The Altman Connection [[Sam Altman]] served as Oklo's chairman and took the company public through his own SPAC. This is the vault's most direct example of vertical integration in the AI-energy complex: the CEO of [[OpenAI]] — the company driving much of the demand for AI compute power — is financially invested in the nuclear startup that would supply that power. The circularity is a textbook conflict-of-interest story and a key data point for [[The Quest for 90 Gigawatts]]. ## Aurora Reactor Oklo's Aurora is a compact passive fast-spectrum reactor that uses recycled nuclear fuel — a differentiator from other SMR designs like NuScale, which is the only NRC-approved SMR to date. The first commercial Aurora powerhouse is being built at Idaho National Laboratory under a [[Department of Energy]] site-use permit, with site work beginning in September 2025 and first operations targeted for late 2027. Oklo's initial NRC application was rejected in 2022; the company completed a pre-application readiness assessment in July 2025 and is pursuing a new application. Subsidiary Atomic Alchemy received Oklo's first actual NRC license (for radioisotopes) in March 2026. ## Meta 1.2 GW Power Campus In January 2026, Oklo signed a prepayment agreement with [[Meta]] to develop a 1.2 GW nuclear power campus in Pike County, Ohio, on a 200+ acre former DOE site. The campus will support [[Meta]]'s data centers in the region, including the Prometheus AI supercluster in New Albany, Ohio. [[Meta]] provides upfront funding for nuclear fuel procurement and project advancement. Pre-construction activities began in 2026, initial power delivery is targeted around 2030, and full 1.2 GW capacity is expected by 2034 using multiple Aurora units. ## Vertiv Partnership In July 2025, Oklo announced a collaboration with Vertiv to co-develop integrated power and thermal management solutions for hyperscale data centers. Aurora's fast-fission reactor produces both electricity and high-temperature steam; Vertiv's absorption chillers and thermal loops can use that waste heat directly for cooling, significantly improving overall energy efficiency. A pilot demonstration is planned for the first Aurora deployment at INL. ## Customer Pipeline Beyond [[Meta]], Oklo has letters of intent totaling approximately 1,350 MW of demand from customers including Switch and Equinix, a 93% increase from 700 MW in mid-2023. ## KB Relevance Oklo is load-bearing for the vault because of the [[Sam Altman]] connection — the CEO of [[OpenAI]] is financially invested in the nuclear startup that would power AI data centers. This is a textbook conflict of interest and vertical integration story. The [[Meta]] campus deal, the DOE reactor-pilot pathway that bypasses NRC licensing (enabled by Trump's May 2025 nuclear executive orders), and the Vertiv integration all position Oklo at the intersection of AI infrastructure, energy policy, and the political economy the vault tracks. ## See Also - [[Sam Altman]] - [[OpenAI]] - [[Meta]] - [[The Quest for 90 Gigawatts]] - [[Department of Energy]] - [[Nuclear Energy Debate]] - [[Energy Sector]] - [[AI Sector]]