Small modular reactor (SMR) and nuclear recycling firm Oklo has increased the potential capacity of its Aurora Powerhouse reactor from 50MW to 75MW to meet growing artificial data center demand.
In its Q4 update, the company signaled that it increased the capacity of the reactor to reflect accelerating demand from large customers, with the 50-75MW range matching data center architectures well.
Oklo said that the increase in capacity would not add “any notable technical, design or regulatory complexities.”
According to the company, the capacity increase was “a customer-informed design decision” based on “where we see … the data center architectures progressing,” CEO Jacob DeWitte said.
In addition, the company claimed that the larger reactor design is more fuel-efficient and offers “economies of scale” by allowing future customers to achieve the same output with fewer reactors.
Oklo has signed numerous supply agreements across the data center sector over the past 12 months.
In January, it signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with RPower, a provider of onsite prime and backup power solutions, to deploy a phased power model that combines natural gas and nuclear power for the data center sector. According to the partners, the model will work in three stages.
At the end of 2024, it signed a non-binding Master Power Agreement with US data center developer Switch to supply up to 12GW of power through 2044.
The agreement with Switch was Oklo’s fifth with a data center company in 2024. Last April, it signed its first agreement with a data center operator, inking a 500MW agreement with Equinix.
Following this, in May, it signed a non-binding letter of intent outlining plans for a PPA with Prometheus Hyperscale to provide 100MW of power through one or more SMRs. Finally, it partnered with two undisclosed data center providers to deliver up to 750MW of power.
At present, Oklo has a customer pipeline exceeding 14GW of power.
However, there have been some bumps in the road for the Sam Altman-backed firm. In 2023, the US Air Force rescinded a $100 million award for one of its microreactors, and the firm has yet to receive approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for its designs.
In addition, last year, investment management firm Kerrisdale Capital said that Oklo is beyond optimistic about its timelines. The firm is working toward submitting a license application in 2025 and hopes for a first reactor deployment by late 2027. However, Kerrisdale contended that the company lacks the long-term supply of enriched uranium required for its reactor technology.
Despite the setbacks, Oklo remains cautiously optimistic for a smooth licensing process, according to its CEO.
“One reference point that I think is important here is TerraPower’s construction permit work — they did a readiness assessment and relatively quickly thereafter [in March 2024] submitted a construction permit, and there’s been recent news that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is ahead of schedule on that review,” DeWitte said. “[TerraPower’s design] is a very similar technology set to ours.”
