Meta is betting big on nuclear power for its artificial intelligence ambitions. On January 5, 2026, the company signed a prepayment agreement with advanced reactor startup Oklo Inc. to develop a 1.2-gigawatt nuclear campus in Pike County, Ohio, according to Oklo’s annual report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The deal is part of Meta’s broader Ohio energy initiative known as Prometheus, which aims to secure reliable, low-carbon electricity for massive data center operations powering the company’s AI services.
Under the agreement, Meta will prepay for future power output and help fund development work at the Pike County site, effectively acting as both customer and co-financier. The structure is unusual: rather than waiting for a utility to build a plant and then purchasing electricity at market rates, Meta is shouldering development risk alongside Oklo in exchange for a dedicated, long-term power supply.
What the deal includes
Oklo’s SEC filing outlines a campus targeting 1.2 GW of nuclear generation capacity, enough to power roughly 900,000 homes or, more to the point, several hyperscale data centers simultaneously. The Associated Press confirmed the deal fits within Meta’s Prometheus project but noted that financial terms were not disclosed. Neither the total prepayment amount nor the per-megawatt-hour price has been made public.
The headline of this story references both TerraPower and Oklo. However, as of early 2026, only the Oklo agreement is supported by regulatory-filed documentation. TerraPower, the Bill Gates-backed reactor company, has been linked to the Prometheus project in broader industry reporting, but no SEC filing, press release, or confirmed contract places TerraPower in a specific, signed deal for the Pike County campus. Readers should treat TerraPower’s involvement as reported but not yet independently confirmed at the same level as Oklo’s.
Why Meta is turning to nuclear
The push toward nuclear reflects a basic math problem facing every major AI company. Training frontier language models and running inference at global scale requires dense, always-on computing clusters that consume staggering amounts of electricity. Meta’s AI research division alone has driven the company’s power consumption sharply upward, and the trajectory points in only one direction as models grow larger and more users interact with AI features across Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
Wind and solar now rank among the cheapest sources of new electricity generation, but their intermittency creates headaches for data centers that cannot throttle down when the sun sets or the wind dies. Battery storage helps smooth short-term gaps, though covering multi-day lulls remains expensive and technically challenging. Nuclear reactors, by contrast, generate steady baseload power around the clock with near-zero direct carbon emissions, a combination that appeals to tech firms chasing aggressive climate pledges while scaling energy-hungry AI operations.
“This is the largest corporate commitment to advanced nuclear power that we’ve seen to date,” said Jacob DeWitte, co-founder and CEO of Oklo, in a statement accompanying the company’s annual report. The remark underscores how the deal positions Oklo as a frontrunner among startups competing for Big Tech energy contracts.
Oklo’s track record and regulatory path
Oklo designs compact fast reactors that use high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) as fuel. The company’s vision centers on factory-built units that can be deployed near industrial loads, including data centers, rather than requiring the massive construction footprints of conventional nuclear plants.
That vision has faced setbacks. In January 2022, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission denied Oklo’s combined license application for its Aurora reactor, citing insufficient information on several safety and design topics. Oklo has since revised its approach and is working toward a new submission, but the Pike County campus does not yet have a construction permit or operating license. No public NRC timeline exists for when review of the Ohio site might conclude, and no projected operational date for the reactors has been disclosed in available filings.
The HALEU fuel supply adds another layer of complexity. The United States currently has limited domestic production capacity for the enriched uranium Oklo’s reactors require. The Department of Energy has funded efforts to expand HALEU availability, but the supply chain remains a bottleneck that could affect project timelines industry-wide.
What it means for Pike County
Pike County sits in southern Ohio’s Appalachian foothills, a region that has weathered decades of economic contraction as legacy industries declined. A 1.2 GW nuclear campus and associated data center infrastructure could bring hundreds of construction jobs and long-term operational positions, along with significant property tax revenue.
But the project will also test community tolerance for nuclear development in an area that has never hosted reactors. State and local officials will need to manage public concerns about safety, radioactive waste storage, water use for reactor cooling, and the environmental footprint of large-scale construction. Federal and state environmental impact assessments must be completed before construction can begin, with opportunities for public comment at multiple stages.
There is also a broader equity question. If large corporate buyers like Meta can lock in dedicated nuclear capacity through bespoke prepayment deals, traditional utility customers, including households and small businesses, may end up with different cost structures and risk exposures. Ohio regulators will need to consider how deals like this interact with the state’s existing electricity market and rate-setting processes.
Unresolved questions around TerraPower and project timelines
Several concrete steps will determine whether the Pike County campus moves from contract to construction. Oklo must secure NRC approval for both its reactor design and the specific Ohio site. Federal and state environmental reviews need to be completed. Financing beyond Meta’s prepayment will almost certainly be required to cover full construction costs, which for 1.2 GW of nuclear capacity could run into the billions.
On Meta’s side, future financial disclosures should clarify how the prepayment is recorded on its balance sheet and whether the company views the commitment as a capital expenditure, an energy hedge, or something else entirely. Investors will be watching for any sign that Meta is locking in power prices that differ materially from wholesale market rates in the PJM Interconnection, the regional grid operator covering Ohio.
Perhaps most critically, any confirmed documentation of TerraPower’s contractual role in the Prometheus project would resolve the current gap between headline claims and the public record. Until that surfaces, the most defensible reading is straightforward: Meta has placed a significant financial bet on Oklo to build advanced nuclear reactors in Ohio, staking real capital on the proposition that AI’s electricity appetite will be met, at least in part, by splitting atoms.
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*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
