Shares of Oklo surged as much as 7% on Tuesday following a significant announcement from the nuclear technology company. The jump came after it reached a crucial agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy to support the design, construction, and operation of its first reactor.
The company is developing its Aurora reactor at the Idaho National Laboratory under a government program launched to fast-track the construction of nuclear reactors. With this new safety design agreement in place, the project now enters its next major phase of execution under official oversight. This milestone follows the initial groundbreaking that took place last September.
Oklo, which became a public company in 2024, specializes in designing small modular nuclear reactors. Often called SMRs, these reactors are widely considered a safer and more efficient method for expanding the country’s nuclear capacity. Their smaller, modular nature allows them to be built in a factory, shipped, and assembled on-site, which dramatically cuts down on both construction time and cost. This compact design also offers superior scalability, making it easy to add more units as energy demand increases.
This governmental partnership arrives amid a broader push to expand nuclear power. The effort is driven by rising energy demands, particularly from the tech sector to power vast data centers and ambitious artificial intelligence initiatives. Earlier this year, Oklo signed a landmark deal with a major tech conglomerate to develop a massive nuclear energy campus, with the client prepaying for early funding of the project.
The current administration has been a strong proponent of accelerating the use of nuclear energy to meet the nation’s growing power needs. Last year, the White House signed executive orders aimed at quadrupling U.S. nuclear power production over the next twenty-five years. Those orders were specifically designed to clear regulatory and permitting hurdles, paving the way for advanced nuclear technologies to move forward more quickly.
