OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is set to step down as chairman of small modular nuclear reactor (SMR) startup Oklo.
Altman held the position since 2015 and will be replaced by CEO and co-founder Jake DeWitte according to a statement released by the company.
“We deeply appreciate Sam’s leadership and dedication to our mission. We are excited to continue working to bring scalable, clean energy to the AI sector and beyond, and to continue to explore strategic partnerships with leading AI companies, including potentially with OpenAI,” said Caroline Cochran, Oklo co-founder and COO.
Oklo is developing a 75MW modular reactor dubbed the Aurora Powerhouse. The company recently increased the planned capacity of the reactor from 50MW to 75MW to meet growing energy demand from the artificial intelligence data center market.
Oklo aims to develop its first SMR by 2027 and, in March, initiated a Pre-Application Readiness Assessment with the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to address the first phase of Oklo's combined license application submission for the reactors.
The company has been engaged with the NRC since 2016, but in 2022 suffered a setback when the NRC denied Oklo’s initial combined license application submission due to the company’s failure to provide information on several key topics for the SMR's design.
Since then, the company has responded to NRC requests for additional information and has submitted reports to address the information gaps noted in the rejection. However, critics such as short seller Kerrisdale Capital have contended that Oklo remains beyond optimistic about its timelines and lacks the long-term supply of enriched uranium required for its reactor technology.
Despite the setbacks, Oklo has signed several agreements over the past year with several data center firms, with a customer pipeline exceeding 14GW of capacity.
Notable deals include a non-binding Master Power Agreement signed last December 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.
