Is Nuclear Microreactor Company Oklo (OKLO) a Buy in 2025?

Nuclear microreactor company Oklo (OKLO) was founded in 2013 by a pair of Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduates...

But what helped put the company on the map is its former chair, Sam Altman.

You may not have heard of Altman. But you'd be living under a rock if you hadn't heard about his invention: ChatGPT.

Altman may be the single most successful entrepreneur in the AI space.

He co-founded his company, OpenAI, with Elon Musk, among others. Key investors range from PayPal (PYPL) co-founder Peter Thiel and Netflix (NFLX) co-founder and executive chair Reed Hastings to corporate sponsors like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft (MSFT).

Altman remains on the board of Helion Energy, which focuses on the far-advanced topic of nuclear fusion. That company is private. Learn more about fusion companies, including Helion Energy, by clicking here.

But he stepped down from Oklo's board in April. He said the move was meant to open new partnership opportunities between Oklo and his company OpenAI – which was recently valued in an investment round at $300 billion... the largest private tech deal in history.

Oklo uses existing technology, adapted for a modern small modular reactor ("SMR"). It depends on liquid metal, rather than water, as its coolant system.

You see, back in the 1960s, Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois, a federally funded research center, experimented with reactor designs.

• Its Experimental Boiling Water Reactor became the template for many large-scale nuclear facilities in the U.S.
• But its Experimental Breeder Reactor II used molten sodium as its coolant – and operated safely and effectively for nearly 30 years.

Oklo is following that path by using sodium in its Aurora nuclear reactor.

There are advantages to using sodium as a coolant. It has very efficient heat transfer and low operating pressures. And there are disadvantages, like sodium's reactivity to air and water, as well as its need for more specialized engineering to move it through the plant.

Ultimately, both designs work...

The market will decide which one is more efficient.

And Oklo is hard to ignore. More important, the Memorandums of Understanding ("MOUs") are starting to come in...

• Last November, Oklo announced deals to provide up to 750 megawatts ("MW") of power at two separate data centers.
• In January, Oklo signed a MOU with nuclear fuel tech company Lightbridge (LTBR) to colocate one of Lightbridge's fuel fabrication facilities at one of Oklo's facilities and to explore ways the two businesses can collaborate in recycling nuclear waste.
• In May, Oklo signed a MOU with Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power for a potential global deployment of Oklo's nuclear technology.
• And days ago, Oklo received a notice of intent from the Defense Logistics Agency Energy – the procurement arm that buys fuel and power for U.S. military bases – to sign a long-term power-purchase agreement for a 75 MW fast reactor at Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska.

What makes Oklo different from other SMR companies is that it wants to sell power, not power plants, to its customers under long-term contracts.

And because the technology it's using has a long safety track record, its first Aurora powerhouse in Idaho – expected to be operational in late 2027 or early 2028 – is designed to immediately be commercially ready, rather than as a demonstration of its tech.

In addition, Oklo is the only advanced nuclear company with fuel already secured for its first commercial facility.

There are still risks, but Oklo's potential upside bears watching...

OKLO shares already jumped 30% this month alone – and this move may just be the tip of the iceberg. We're watching a full-blown nuclear comeback story unfold.