Altman's OKLO signs historic power supply deal with data center giant! Stock price surged 13% in pre-market trading!

Oklo, a nuclear energy startup supported by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, announced on Wednesday that it has reached a framework agreement with data center operator Switch. According to Oklo's press release, the two parties have signed a non-binding Master Power Agreement, planning to deploy a 12 GW Oklo Aurora nuclear power plant project for the data center by 2044.

Following the announcement, Oklo's stock price rose over 13% in pre-market trading but gave back gains after the market opened, even turning negative at one point, and was up about 4% at midday.

Meanwhile, the company has become one of the most shorted targets this year:

According to the press release, the agreement stipulates that "Oklo will develop, build, and operate the nuclear power plant to provide electricity for Switch's data centers across the United States, facilitated through a series of power purchase agreements." Additionally, the partnership will "help accelerate the deployment of Oklo's early nuclear power plants and enable the company to respond to the growing demand pipeline and scale over the coming decades."

Rob Roy, founder and CEO of Switch, stated:

"Our collaboration with Oklo reflects our commitment to the large-scale deployment of advanced nuclear energy in data centers, while further enhancing the world-class data center infrastructure we provide to existing and future customers."

"By utilizing Oklo's nuclear energy systems, we aim to ensure that Switch remains at the forefront of sustainability in data centers while realizing our vision of abundant energy."

Jacob DeWitte, co-founder and CEO of Oklo, remarked:

"We are thrilled to partner with Switch to reach this historic agreement. Rob Roy and the Switch team share our belief in the critical role of nuclear energy in driving the development of artificial intelligence and providing abundant energy to the world."

"Switch has demonstrated exceptional performance in turning vision into reality, and Oklo expects to benefit greatly from this. The long-term nature of this agreement will allow us to iterate and develop together with Switch, from design and development to deployment and scaling. We believe that partnering with Switch will not only accelerate the deployment of our early nuclear energy systems but also expedite our future scaling through validation of long-term customer demand."

The press release from both companies also noted: "Since January 2016, all Switch data centers have operated on 100% renewable energy, consuming nearly 984 million kilowatt-hours of green electricity annually." Analysis believes that nuclear energy will play a key role in addressing the demand for green energy. Just a few days ago, Japan restarted the No. 2 reactor at the Shimane Nuclear Power Plant, which has been shut down since January 2012. This move increases the number of operational nuclear reactors in Japan to 14.

About a week ago, Meta released a comprehensive project tender seeking nuclear operators capable of starting operations of nuclear reactors in the early 2030s to support Meta's high-energy data centers and surrounding communities.

Axios reported that Meta's tender aims to construct next-generation nuclear facilities with a total capacity of 1 to 4 gigawatts, hoping to find partners who can streamline the entire process of nuclear power projects, providing one-stop solutions from site selection, approval, design, construction, to operation.

Earlier this month, OilPrice.com published an article exploring whether the world has moved beyond the shadow of the Chernobyl disaster. The article mentioned that despite facing many challenges in the past, global interest in nuclear energy is rapidly growing, and nuclear energy is being viewed as an important component of the sustainable energy future