Meta has announced agreements with two nuclear-energy startups, betting on small-reactor developers to power its artificial-intelligence ambitions.
On Friday the company said it had agreed to prepay for electricity from a 1.2-gigawatt project being developed by Oklo, as well as from a 2.8-gigawatt facility at TerraPower—a company founded by billionaire and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. Separately, Meta struck a deal to secure 2.1 gigawatts from existing nuclear power plants owned by Vistra. Taken together, the agreements amount to 6 gigawatts—enough to supply roughly 5 million homes. The deals follow last year’s agreement under which Meta committed to buying power from a nuclear plant in Illinois owned by Constellation Energy.
The company is increasingly turning to still-immature nuclear technologies, seeking to fuel the expansion of energy-intensive AI services while providing financial support to vulnerable startups developing small reactors that have yet to obtain licences.
The agreement with Oklo—among whose investors is Sam Altman of OpenAI—envisages financing a project on a 206-acre site in Pike County, Ohio. The startup expects to begin construction as early as this year and bring the facility to full capacity by 2030.
Meta’s funds are expected to help Oklo purchase nuclear fuel and continue developing a reactor technology that uses liquid sodium, rather than water, as a coolant. The companies did not disclose the price at which Meta will buy electricity from Oklo and TerraPower.
With a market capitalisation of roughly $15bn, Oklo reported no revenue throughout 2025 and posted widening quarterly losses. Its shares have fallen by more than 40 per cent from their October peak. Following the announcement, however, Oklo’s stock jumped by more than 17 per cent in premarket trading, while Vistra’s shares gained 14 per cent. TerraPower remains a private company.
Meta said its agreement with TerraPower includes support for developing 690 megawatts of capacity by 2032, as well as a further 2.1 gigawatts slated for 2035.
Although interest in small modular reactors surged in 2025 amid the power demands of AI-driven data centres, companies in the sector are facing intensifying scrutiny of their valuations and of the practical realities of building and licensing such technologies.
Oklo expects to begin commercial electricity deliveries to its first customers by 2027, but it still lacks a licence from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Its application was rejected in 2022 and, despite pledges to submit a new one by the end of 2025, that has yet to happen.
The company has also attracted the attention of short-sellers, with around 16 per cent of its shares on loan to investors betting on a further decline in its valuation.
Oklo said the agreement with Meta marked its first legally binding contract for the sale of electricity. Previously, the company had announced only looser, less formal partnerships with data-centre operators Switch and Equinix.
At the same time, industry experts caution that until licences are secured and construction actually begins, such arrangements remain highly uncertain.
“There are so many agreements that they have become yawn-inducing. In essence, what is being bought exists only on paper or in a PowerPoint presentation,” said Chris Gadomski, head of nuclear-energy research at BloombergNEF. Many, he added, underestimate just how slow and complex the process of commercialising nuclear technologies really is.
According to estimates by consultancy Wood Mackenzie, small modular reactors will need to sell electricity at prices roughly 44 per cent higher than gas-fired generation by 2030 in order to break even.
The final cost of electricity from such facilities remains unclear, but large corporations betting on growth driven by AI are keen to lock in access to substantial volumes of capacity in advance and are likely willing to pay a premium, said Adam Stein, a nuclear-energy expert at the Breakthrough Institute.
“Projects have not yet reached a stage at which a definitive cost assessment can be made,” he said. “But if the power is sold to a company with a higher appetite for risk, it may be willing to assume the other side of the deal.”