Oklo's stock surges. Why Meta's new nuclear bet is so significant.

By Christine Ji

Meta's newly announced deal with Oklo is the pre-revenue nuclear company's first major commercial agreement

Meta's deals could help new nuclear reactors come online as early as 2030.

Meta Platforms is betting big on nuclear energy to satisfy the insatiable appetite of its artificial-intelligence supercomputers.

On Friday morning, Meta (META) announced plans to back new reactor projects with Oklo (OKLO) and TerraPower. The company also entered into a 20-year power-purchase agreement with Vistra (VST) for a total of up to 6.6 gigawatts of nuclear power.

The news sent shares of Vistra and Oklo up 15% shortly after Friday's open. Shares of Meta were roughly flat.

Meta's agreement with Vistra includes up to 2.6 gigawatts of power capacity from three existing nuclear power plants for data centers in Ohio and Pennsylvania, according to a press release. Purchases will begin in late 2026, according to the release.

Both Oklo and TerraPower are developing small nuclear reactors, a nascent technology that promises to be safer and more flexible than traditional reactors. For Oklo, Meta will make prepayments for power to help the nuclear startup buy fuel and finance construction of a new campus in Ohio. The first reactor is targeted to come online around 2030, and the full capacity of up to 1.2 gigawatts is expected by 2034. Meta's agreement with TerraPower will fund the development of two advanced reactors, targeted to go online as early as 2032, and give the tech giant the option to source energy from up to six additional units by 2035.

Financial terms for these deals were not disclosed.

Oklo's deal with Meta is the nuclear startup's first major commercial agreement - an important development for a company that hasn't generated any revenue as of its latest financial filings.

See more: Inside the zero-revenue nuclear stock whose 1,500% rally is shaking up the AI trade

"This deal provides Oklo with the necessary capital from commercial partners to advance power infrastructure to support future data-center capacity, meaning that Meta is paying to help add more power," Wedbush analyst Dan Ives wrote in a note on Friday morning.

These nuclear-energy deals are the latest installment of Big Tech's endeavors to secure a reliable and high-capacity source of energy to power their data centers. But Meta isn't new to the nuclear-power scene, having signed a 20-year deal with Constellation Energy (CEG) in June to support its operations in Illinois.

Other prominent "Magnificent Seven" companies are also making moves in the nuclear space. In August, Nvidia's (NVDA) venture arm joined Alphabet (GOOGL) (GOOG) in backing nuclear-fusion startup Commonwealth Fusion Systems. In June, Nvidia also participated in a $650 million fundraising round for the Bill Gates-backed TerraPower.

-Christine Ji

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