Oklo (NYSE: OKLO) announced an agreement with Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: META) earlier this year to develop a large-scale nuclear facility in south central Ohio to power data centers in the region.
The planned “nuclear campus” will be situated between Cincinnati and Columbus, delivering 1.2 gigawatts of power to Meta facilities across the area.
Pre-construction activities are scheduled to begin in 2027, with general construction expected to follow in late 2028 or into 2029.
The first phase of the nuclear plant is targeted to come online around 2030, marking a significant milestone for both companies if timelines hold.
Oklo’s facility will be built around its so-called Aurora reactors, a type of small modular reactor designed to be partly manufactured in factories before being delivered to the construction site.
The factory-built approach is intended to reduce both construction time and costs compared to traditional large-scale nuclear power plants, which have historically suffered from lengthy delays and cost overruns.
Small modular reactor technology, however, remains relatively unproven at commercial scale, and Oklo has yet to secure the necessary license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for the Ohio facility.
The company is actively pursuing that regulatory approval, and the outcome of that process will be critical to determining whether the project stays on schedule.
Oklo did break ground on a separate reactor project in Idaho in September 2025, signaling the company is moving forward with its broader commercialization strategy even as regulatory hurdles persist.
Despite the high-profile Meta partnership, Oklo’s share price has fallen 45% in 2026, reflecting investor caution around the viability of its unproven business model and the commercial readiness of SMR technology.
The deal nonetheless underscores growing demand from major technology companies for reliable, carbon-free power sources capable of supporting increasingly energy-intensive artificial intelligence infrastructure and data center operations.
If Oklo can secure regulatory approval and execute on construction timelines, the Ohio project could represent one of the most consequential deployments of small modular reactor technology in the United States to date.
