-3 2x1.jpg)
Meta’s new nuclear deals with Oklo and TerraPower: The details
Tech giant Meta is making big bets on TerraPower and Oklo. With the former, the hyperscaler could support the deployment of up to eight new reactors. With the latter, it could be as many as sixteen.
For both start-ups, Meta hopes its demand bolsters supply chains, the workforce, and the nuclear industry generally. For itself, the company is aiming to secure more generation to cleanly power its AI ambitions.
Oklo’s existing pipeline: Oklo enters this deal with Meta as it works through a complicated network of partnerships with the Department of Energy along with tentative commitments in the private sector.
In 2025 alone, Oklo announced a number of deals with companies like Vertiv, Liberty, Kiewit, Blykalla, and Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power.
As for DOE programs, first, in August, Oklo was selected for the Reactor Pilot Program. The company’s selection was noteworthy, because three of its projects were chosen for the program, whereas other companies have only one project.
Oklo was also selected for the related Fuel Line Pilot Program, which focuses on fuel fabrication facilities rather than new reactor builds. Since then, the company has broken ground on the site of its first Aurora reactor at Idaho National Laboratory (dubbed Aurora-INL), has signed an other transaction agreement with the DOE, and has received approval for its Nuclear Safety Design Agreement for its Aurora Fuel Fabrication Facility, also at INL.
New Auroras: Meta’s partnership with Oklo will center on a new facility in Pike County, Ohio. Targeted to come on line as early as 2030, the campus could feature as much as 1.2 GW of new nuclear capacity.
This capacity will come from the deployment of multiple Aurora reactors. Because of the reactor’s complicated history, however, some details are still up in the air. In 2016, Oklo entered into preapplication activities with the NRC for a 1.5-MW version of the Aurora. The eventual license application for that project was denied by the NRC in 2022. Since then, the planned capacity of the reactor has changed several times.
Aurora-INL is rated at 75 MWe. Assuming the Auroras deployed with Meta will mirror the design of Aurora-INL, the Ohio site could be home to as many as 16 reactors.
Oklo coming to Ohio makes good on plans that have been in the making since 2023, when it signed an agreement with the Southern Ohio Diversification Initiative to deploy two 15-MWe Auroras on land near the site of the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant.
More deals for TerraPower: Like Oklo, TerraPower is entering into this new collaboration with Meta boosted by tailwinds of DOE support. Unlike Oklo, however, TerraPower has focused almost all of its attention on a single design: its Natrium reactor.
The first deployment of the Natrium reactor will be in Kemmerer, Wyo., where the company broke ground on nonnuclear construction in June 2024. This project was first selected for fast-tracking under the DOE’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program in 2020.
On that front, TerraPower has made persistent progress. Most recently, the NRC completed its final safety evaluation for the project’s construction permit application in December 2025. The company expects to complete the project in 2030. TerraPower is also supported by the DOE’s HALEU Availability Program and was allocated HALEU in 2025.
TerraPower, like Oklo, has its share of private partnerships to complement its federal collaborations. In 2025 alone, the company signed an MOU with the Utah Office of Energy Development to potentially site a Natrium reactor in the state; signed an MOU with engineering company KBR to conduct joint studies on deploying a Natrium reactor in the U.K., building on its broader engagement in the U.K. regulatory process; and signed an MOU with Evergy and the Kansas Department of Commerce to potentially site a Natrium reactor in that state as well.
The terms of Meta’s deal with TerraPower are, as of now, less developed than those with Oklo. The locations of the eight potential reactors that the partnership could involve are currently undecided. TerraPower said in a statement that the companies “will target identification of a specific site for the initial dual reactor unit in the coming months.”
TerraPower is aiming for the first units in this new project to come on line as early as 2032. The terms of the deal state that Meta will support early development activity for the first two new units, and hold rights for energy from up to six additional units.
Go deeper: This is the third article Newswire has published on Meta’s recent nuclear deals. For a broad overview of the agreements, read “Meta strikes deals with Vistra, Oklo, TerraPower.” For a deeper dive on its deal with Vistra, read “The Meta-Vistra deal: A closer look.”
.png)
