Catenaa, Tuesday, March 17, 2026- Oklo stock surged as much as 7% on Tuesday before giving up gains after it said that it reached an agreement with the US Department of Energy for its first reactor.
The company is developing its Aurora reactor at the Idaho National Laboratory under the DOE’s Reactor Pilot Program (RPP), launched to fast-track the construction of nuclear reactors.
The announcement came ahead of Oklo’s quarterly results, expected after the closing bell.
With the safety design agreement, the Aurora powerhouse now enters the next phase of execution under government oversight after Oklo broke ground on the project in September.
Oklo, which went public in 2024, designs small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs), considered a safer and more efficient way to expand US nuclear capacity beyond traditional plants.
Because they are smaller and modular, SMRs can be factory-built, shipped, and installed on site, reducing construction time and cost.
Their compact design also allows for better scalability, with additional units added as demand grows.
The DOE agreement comes amid a push by the government to expand nuclear power and rising investment from Big Tech to support data centers and AI initiatives.
In January 2026, Meta and Oklo signed a landmark agreement for a 1.2-gigawatt (GW) nuclear energy campus in Pike County, Ohio. Meta agreed to prepay for early funding of the project.
The Trump administration has been pushing to accelerate the use of nuclear energy as a way to meet increasing power demand in the US.
Last year, President Trump signed executive orders aimed at quadrupling US nuclear power production over the next 25 years, from approximately 100 GW in 2024 to 400 GW by 2050.
The orders cleared regulatory and permitting roadblocks to accelerate nuclear technologies.
The Okla stock is still down over 15% so far this year.
