Sam Altman may be best known as the CEO of OpenAI, but the executive is also closely tied to a nuclear energy startup called Oklo. Founded in 2013 by MIT graduates Jacob DeWitte and Caroline Cochran, Oklo entered the startup incubator Y Combinator the following year. Altman, who was president of the Y Combinator between 2014 and 2019, subsequently invested in the company and became its chairman.
As opposed to traditional nuclear plants that usually have around 1,000 megawatts of capacity, Oklo strives to develop plants at smaller capacities of only 15 megawatts and 50 megawatts. It plans to generate revenue by directly selling energy to clients through decades-long power purchase agreements. “We wanted to start as small as we reasonably could so that we could have a technology that could service a market of reasonable size,” DeWitte, who serves as Oklo’s CEO, told analysts during an earnings call on Aug. 13. Oklo went public in May through a merger with AltC Acquisition Corp, a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) backed by Altman.
Oklo plans to build its first reactor at the Idaho National Laboratory. While the company expects the plant to open by 2027, it still needs approval from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to construct and operate the reactor. It also aims to build a commercial-scale recycling facility by the decade’s end.
Oklo’s customer base has increased significantly in the past year despite not operating yet, revealing the startup during its recent quarterly earnings. It now has 1,350 megawatts in signed letters of intent, up 93 percent from 700 megawatts last July. Its prospective clients include the U.S. Air Force; the data center provider Equinix; Diamondback Energy, a Texas-based oil and natural gas company; and the computer networking company Wyoming Hyperscale. “There are huge growth opportunities ahead,” said Altman in an investor letter. Data centers are a growing client category, as they face the prospect of doubling their energy consumption by 2030 to meet A.I. demand. DeWitte revealed in May that 80 percent of customer inquiries are coming from data center operators.
Nuclear power could be a solution to A.I.’s energy crisis
Tech companies like OpenAI, Amazon (AMZN), Google (GOOGL) and Microsoft (MSFT) have all expressed interest in nuclear power options as they rapidly develop data centers to power their A.I. models. A ChatGPT query, for example, needs nearly ten times as much electricity as a Google search, according to Goldman Sachs researchers. “I’m all-in on energy,” Altman told CNBC last July when discussing his involvement with Oklo. “I think there’s an urgent demand for tons and tons of cheap, safe, clean energy at scale.”
Oklo’s SPAC listing gave the startup more than $300 million in proceeds. The company reported having $295 million in cash and liquid securities at the end of June. The company also reported a net operating loss of $25 million during the quarter, a figure it noted was impacted by compensation expenses, and expects a full-year loss forecast of $40 million to $50 million.
Despite the fact that Oklo is not yet generating revenue, investors like Cathie Wood have been building up a position in the nuclear power provider. Earlier this week, Wood’s firm ARK Invest took on $430,000 worth of Oklo shares, bringing her total holdings in the company to more than $2 million.
Oklo isn’t the only clean energy startup gaining traction amongst A.I. leaders. Altman also chairs Helion, a company attempting to commercialize nuclear fusion. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, meanwhile, has invested more than $1 billion in nuclear energy startup Terrapower, while Amazon’s Jeff Bezos is backing the Canada-based company General Fusion.
