By Katherine Hamilton

Oklo has the opportunity to fuel the artificial intelligence boom with clean energy, but first it needs to open a power plant.

After trying and failing to get the regulatory approvals needed to build a small modular reactor that produces nuclear energy, Oklo's chief executive is hopeful the company can start building under what he expects will be a more lenient administration.

"What we're excited about with this administration is their focus on an actionable approach," Chief Executive Jacob DeWitte said.

The Santa Clara, Calif., company is working to design a nuclear energy plant that is more flexible and potentially safer than big reactors such as Three-Mile Island. A handful of companies are racing to build the first SMR in the U.S. The goal is to take advantage of the soaring demand for clean energy as companies shift to comply with sustainability mandates and AI's growth requires more and more power for its data centers.

The company also said Monday it is working with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to prepare a combined license application for an SMR to be built in Idaho.

Oklo on Monday posted a loss of $73.6 million, or 74 cents a share, for the full year ended Dec. 31, compared with a loss of $32.2 million, or 47 cents a share, the year before. Operating expenses increased to $52.8 million from $18.6 million the prior year.

Oklo is aiming to have an operational SMR by 2027 or 2028, DeWitte said, a faster timeline than most of its competitors, which don't expect to operate until after 2030. That goal will require its application process to go better than it did the first time. The company applied in 2020 for approval, only to be denied two years later. The NRC said in its denial letter Oklo didn't provide enough information to demonstrate the safety of its design.

"Cutting some of the bureaucratic and regulatory hurdles that have existed before is where I think this administration is going to be very constructive," said DeWitte, who co-founded Oklo with fellow Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate Caroline Cochran.

Earlier this month, former Oklo board member Chris Wright became Secretary of Energy. DeWitte believes the administration's attitude toward nuclear energy will be positive, he said.

Oklo went public in May 2024 with the help of a special purpose acquisition company owned by OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman. It has two non-binding agreements to produce energy for data-center operator Switch and the oil and natural gas company Diamondback Energy.

While Oklo's future remains uncertain, DeWitte is confident the U.S.' stark need for energy will motivate the government to speed up the regulatory process for nuclear SMRs.

"We under developed, as a country, our power generation capabilities, so we're facing this crunch of needing a lot more power than there is," he said.

Write to Katherine Hamilton at katherine.hamilton@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 24, 2025 16:33 ET (20:33 GMT)

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