Oklo Stock

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us, and welcome to Oklo's Second Quarter 2026 Financial Results and Webcast. [Operator Instructions]

I will now hand the conference over to Sam Doane, Senior Director of Investor Relations. Sam, please go ahead.

Thank you, operator, and welcome, everyone, to Oklo's Second Quarter 2026 Earnings and Company Update Call. I'm Sam Doane, Oklo's Senior Director of Investor Relations. Joining me today are Jake Dewitte, Oklo's Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer; and Craig Bealmear, our Chief Financial Officer. Earlier today, we released our second quarter 2026 financial results. Today's accompanying slide presentation is available on the Investor Relations section of our website.

Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that today's discussion, including our prepared remarks and the Q&A session that follows, will include forward-looking statements. These statements reflect our current views regarding trends, assumptions, risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed today. We encourage you to review our forward-looking statements disclaimer included in our supplemental presentation.

Additional information regarding relevant risks can also be found in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Oklo undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Jake. Jake?

Thanks, Sam. I want to start with 2 developments that are expanding the capabilities available to execute advanced nuclear projects in the United States. The first is the U.S. Department of Energy's Genesis mission. We see Genesis as a sizable opportunity for Oklo and for the broader nuclear industry. DOE is bringing together its 17 national laboratories, industry, academia, advanced computing infrastructure, experimental facilities, scientific data and artificial intelligence capabilities. In July, DOE announced the first project selections and more than $800 million in mission wide partner commitments.

Prometheus, an IML-led project in which Oklo is participating, was selected for a $60 million Phase I award over 3 years, subject to appropriations. Oklo is participating in multiple projects connected to the Genesis mission. One example is our announced collaboration with NVIDIA and was Los Alamos National Laboratory. That work brings together Oklo's reactor and fuel capabilities, NVIDIA's AI infrastructure and Los Alamos' expertise in nuclear fuels and materials.

Together, we are working to develop and deploy physics and chemistry-based AI models, digital twins, modeling and simulation tools that can accelerate fuel validation and improve the workflows used to design deploy and operate nuclear facilities. These are not generic AI applications, they are focused on some of the most time-intensive and technically demanding parts of nuclear deployment.

The second development is on DOE's nuclear life cycle innovation campus initiative. DOE recently selected Utah, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Idaho as potential host states for campuses that could bring together fuel fabrication; enrichment, recycling, reactor development and deployment power generation, advanced manufacturing and data centers. We have held productive conversations with all 5 states. We are excited about the potential in each of them and look forward to further engagement as the process advances and the campus plans take shape.

United States is building real execution capabilities across artificial intelligence, national laboratories, fuel infrastructure, manufacturing and deployment. Oklo has deliberately positioned itself to be a central participant in these efforts.

Before we move into the quarter's project updates, I want to reinforce how we think about Oklo and reemphasize that we are not building 3 isolated businesses. We are building one integrated nuclear technology platform across power, fuel and isotopes. We see this as a fundamental and distinctive strategy. Power is the anchor. Our Aurora powerhouses are designed to deliver clean, reliable and affordable electricity and heat under long-term commercial arrangements.

Fuel is the enabler, no matter how strong the customer demand or how mature the reactor design no nuclear deployment can scale without a reliable fuel supply. Fuel has always been a focus for Oakwood. That is why we are building capabilities across fuel sourcing, fabrication and recycling rather than relying on a single externally managed pathway.

Isotopes expand the value of the platform. They allow us to apply many of the same nuclear materials, processing, licensing, procurement and operating capabilities to high-value markets across space, health care, defense, industry and research. Importantly, vertical integration is not simply about expanding the scope of our platform. It can also create greater flexibility in how we fund growth. By investing in fuel sourcing, fabrication, recycling and related infrastructure, Oklo can capture value across the full life cycle of a nuclear asset, including in structures where third-party capital could fund a greater share of powerhouse deployment.

Over time, this model could reduce the amount of direct capital Oklo must invest per deployed megawatt while preserving recurring revenue opportunities across power, fuel supply operations, recycling and isotope production. This flexibility can improve capital efficiency, expand the range of financing structures available to us and support faster and more scalable deployment of the broader platform. Because Oklo develops, owns and operates these assets, we retain the operating experience, procedures and execution knowledge generated across the platform.

This slide shows the practical logic behind the integrated platform. The conventional nuclear fuel cycle is largely linear and extremely fragmented, mining, enrichment, fuel fabrication, power generation and long-term used fuel management are typically handled by different parties. Each participant is usually involved in only one part of the system, and most of the remaining fuel value is not returned to productive use. For the advanced nuclear industry, fuel cannot be treated as a procurement item that gets solved at the end of a project. It is one of the most important constraints on deployment.

A reactor strategy without a credible and scalable fuel strategy has a fundamental gap. Oklo is building what we believe to be a distinctive and differentiated model. Initial HALEU feedstock can move through our fuel fabrication capabilities to supply Aurora powerhouses and potentially other nuclear fuel customers. Those powerhouses would generate reliable heat and power while creating used fuel that can ultimately be recycled, both of which use proven technologies. Through recycling, usable material can be recovered, returned through fuel fabrication and reused in future powerhouses.

Conventional and used nuclear fuel could also provide an additional feedstock source over time. In addition, recycling may create opportunities to recover valuable isotope materials. We are not optimizing the system for one core load or a single reactor. We are building the supply, fabrication, recycling and operating capabilities required to support a fleet of reactors that will support the strong demand we continue to see from our potential customers. That creates a flywheel power creates recurring fuel demand, scale supports investment in fabrication and recycling.

Recycling expands long-term supply and enhances availability in addition to the commercial HALEU fuel markets. Isotopes create additional value from shared nuclear capabilities. Not every part of the system is commercially operating today, but this is the platform we are actively building. It is designed to support repeatable growth across an Oklo fleet. This is where the strategy we just described becomes tangible. We are actively putting capital to work, building physical assets and developing the infrastructure needed to deliver the integrated platform across power, fuel and isotopes.

In Power, Aurora-INL is our anchor deployment and the foundation for future Aurora projects. In Ohio, we are advancing a planned 1.2-gigawatt clean energy campus designed around phased deployment of multiple powerhouses. At Eielson Air Force Base, we are developing an Aurora application designed to provide both electricity and heat for a mission-critical defense installation. In fuel, the Aurora fuel fabrication facility is being developed to fabricate fuel for our first Aurora core. Our advanced fuel center in Tennessee is intended to establish domestic recycling capability and expand the long-term fuel supply available to our fleets.

In isotopes, Groves is now complete, and we have reached first criticality and our NRC license, Idaho radioisotope laboratory is supporting initial commercial isotope activities. These assets are in different stages and serve different markets, but they are all part of the same execution strategy. Each project advances an immediate commercial or technical objective while also building capabilities that supports the broader Oklo platform. That includes engineering, licensing, procurement and construction, fuel handling operations and customer delivery.

We are using the capital we have raised to build real assets and the execution infrastructure behind them. This is how the integrated model shown on the prior slide moves from strategy into operation and how we build the foundation to deploy repeatedly rather than 1 project at a time.

Since our last update, we made substantial progress across power, fuel and isotopes business lines within our vertically integrated nuclear technology platform. The most important point is that we are not advancing these business lines independently, we are continuing to build the shared capabilities that support all 3. During the quarter, we strengthened our manufacturing, engineering and specialized systems capabilities through the acquisitions of ARMEC and Creative Engineers, Inc. We also expanded our use of artificial intelligence through Prometheus and our work with the national laboratories.

Across the portfolio, we are taking actions now to reduce future supply chain constraints. That includes advancing fabrication equipment qualifying suppliers, strengthening internal manufacturing capabilities, accelerating procurement where appropriate and integrating engineering, procurement and construction planning earlier in the development process. We are not only procuring what is needed for the next project. We are building the talent, processes and capabilities with future deployments in mind.

At the asset level, Aurora-INL further advanced through DOE authorization and construction Aurora, Ohio, moved deeper into execution. Our fuel strategy expanded through continued work with Centrus recycling planning in Tennessee and potential use of government materials and our isotope business advanced both technically and commercially. A defining milestone since our last company update was Groves reaching first criticality. That achievement brings together many of the themes on this slide. disciplined capital deployment, commercial procurement, construction, execution, authorization, start-up and operations. We will spend the next several slides explaining what Groves' accomplished and why it matters for every part of the Oklo platform.

This is what the Groves journey look like. In September 2025, Groves was an undeveloped site in the Texas Prairie. By March of this year, the facility had taken shape. We have completed the major civil work installed key systems, and we're advancing commissioning and authorization activities. By early August, Groves was an operating nuclear isotope facility and had achieved first criticality. That transformation took a little over 11 months from groundbreaking. The pace is remarkable, not only for the nuclear industry but for any complex industrial project.

In that period, we moved from site preparation through construction, installation, commissioning, fuel loading, startup testing and operation. And we did not accomplish this by stepping into an existing national laboratory facility or borrowing an established operating organization. We built the project on private land, financed it with private capital and developed the execution and operating capabilities all inside Oklo. This time line is the clearest visual representation of what the team accomplished, but the real value is not just the speed, it is the experience we gained by moving through the full deployment process ourselves. I want to put the scale of this achievement into context.

Based on our internal reviews, Groves represents the fastest transition that we are aware of from greenfield to criticality for a full-scale privately funded and privately cited reactor in history. We completed substantial construction in 229 days and reached first criticality in less than a year after groundbreaking. That is a record-setting pace for the nuclear industry but it is also an extraordinary pace for any complex industrial facility. In that period, the team had to develop in-house, the site design the reactor and the facility, complete civil construction, procure and install specialized equipment, establish the safety basis, source and load fuel, commission the systems, train and qualify operators complete federal safety reviews and safely bring the reactor critical.

Groves was built on private land and financed with private capital. Its major systems, components, fuel and construction services were commercially sourced or manufactured by Oklo. DOE provided rigorous safety oversight in the authorization pathway through the reactor pilot program, while Oklo supplied the capital and led the execution. Groves also became the first reactor pilot program reactor to achieve criticality on privately owned land, built from the ground up on a greenfield site.

This is an important demonstration of how we are responsibly putting the capital we have raised to work. We are not only funding studies or developing designs for others to build. We are building and operating nuclear assets, and we are doing it at a pace that many people did not believe was possible. But this was not merely an investment in Groves. This was an investment in the organization and capabilities required to deliver future assets.

Criticality validated the reactor, the entirety of the completed project validated the execution engine around it. We now have real construction data, trained operators, operating experience, DOE authorization experience and project controls in-house at Oklo. That does not remove the unique work required for future facilities but it meaningfully reduces execution uncertainty because we have now completed the full journey ourselves from an open field to an operating nuclear facility.

The significance of Groves goes far beyond the reactor physics. We did not build the smallest possible experiment simply to reach criticality. We built a complete nuclear facility, and in doing so, created the organizational infrastructure required to deploy nuclear assets repeatedly. That capability creation was substantial. We developed a private greenfield site works through local permitting and environmental requirements and establish the procedures needed to manage construction and nuclear operations on private land.

We built a safety basis and engineering documentation required to support DOE review. We created quality assurance programs, configuration controls, document controls, and the processes needed to manage technical changes as the facility moved from design through construction and startup. We established security programs, physical access controls, material controls, emergency preparedness, radiation protection, environmental health and safety procedures and maintenance programs.

We built the operating organization that meant hiring, training, qualifying and managing the people responsible for operating the facility. It meant writing the procedures they would use testing those procedures and demonstrating to DOE that both the facility and the organization are ready to operate safely.

In terms of procurement, we qualified suppliers, negotiated commercial terms, managed purchase orders, completed factory acceptance testing, coordinated delivery and took specialized systems through installation and commissioning. We also developed the project controls behind the work, cost management, schedule management, risk management, execution governance, supplier performance, construction sequencing and readiness planning all had to function together. These were not capabilities we borrowed from a national laboratory or inherited from an established nuclear operator. Oklo built them. We use them and demonstrated them successfully through the Groves project and now we'll implement them in the deployment of other assets.

That distinction matters because our integrated build, own and operate model allows us to retain and leverage the experience. the procedure stay inside Oklo, the experiences with suppliers stay inside Oklo, the operators, project control, safety programs and lessons learned stay inside Oklo, and we learned from all of them. The next asset being built may be different, and the engineering and safety basis will be specific to each project and each product, but the organization and capabilities required to deliver those assets is no longer theoretical.

As a result of the Groves facility, Oklo has developed a functioning nuclear deployment organization that has now designed, procured constructed, authorized, commissioned and operated a full-scale reactor. That is a significant capability and it can strengthen execution across every part of the company.

This is how the capabilities we build through Groves translate across the broader company. Future Oklo assets do not have to start from 0. Every product line will still require its own engineering, safety analysis, licensing work and execution plan, and Aurora Powerhouse is different from an isotope reactor and a fuel facility is different from both. But each future asset can now start with an experienced team that has already moved a nuclear project from an undeveloped site through construction, authorization, commissioning, startup and operation that meaningfully changes the starting point.

For future isotope facilities, the transfer is the most direct. We have now built a full-scale operating reactor that is repeatable and now we can reuse and improve the deployment model, operating programs, authorization experience and workforce capabilities established at Groves for future isotope facilities. Our next isotope facility is already in the planning stage.

For Aurora powerhouses, we can adapt the project controls, procurement processes, construction sequencing, commissioning practices and procedures, readiness preparation and operating experience to a larger and more complex power facility. For our fuel fabrication and recycling assets, we can apply the nuclear quality systems, material handling procedures, radiological controls, security programs, access controls and authorization experience built through Groves.

Our build, own and operate model is important here because Oklo retains and through repetition iterates and refine these capabilities. We retain the people, we retain the procedures, we retain the cost and schedule data, the operating experience and the lessons learned, each project can build on the one before it rather than transferring that knowledge to a customer or recreating it with a new operating organization.

Groves was an exceptional execution achievement. We believe it also reduced future execution risk across our platform. It did not eliminate the project-specific risks associated with future facilities, but it demonstrated that Oklo can create and operate the organization required to deliver a nuclear asset. Future projects can begin with experienced teams, tested systems, real suppliers and an execution model that has already been used successfully.

By building a full-scale nuclear facility, including full-scale civil engineering and construction on private land and fully commercially sourced fuel, we are learning at full scale. That is what makes Groves more than a single reactor milestone. It is reasonable execution infrastructure for the rest of Oklo. The experience and capabilities we build through Groves are already informing how we approach our Aurora powerhouse deployments from authorization and construction through procurement, commissioning and operations.

At Aurora-INL, the primary regulatory milestone this quarter was DOE approval of the preliminary documented safety analysis, or PDSA. This is an important step because the PDSA establishes the preliminary safety basis for the facility, including the hazard analysis, accident analysis, safety controls and design commitments that support continued advancement of final design and construction. With the PDSA approved, the next DOE milestones are completion and approval of the documented safety analysis which we expect will be nearer to the commercial operations, followed by the readiness review and start-up authorization. This is the same authorization process and steps we successfully utilized for the Groves deployment.

Execution at the site is also advancing. Site mobilization is underway, and excavation for the reactor area is near completion. In parallel, we continue to progress procurement, engineering and system integration across the project. The objective is to keep the major work streams moving together. Safety review and forms design, design informs procurement and construction field execution then provides real information that improves planning and coordination across the project. The experience from Groves is already relevant here. We now have firsthand experience managing construction, supplier coordination, DOE safety reviews, readiness preparation and startup planning within one integrated operating organization.

Aurora-INL is a larger and more complex asset than the Groves 1 isotope reactor, but we are carrying those execution capabilities forward as we continue progressing toward operations. At Aurora, Ohio, we are carrying the execution model from our first deployment into planning for a much larger fleet. During the quarter, we entered into an MOU with Kiewit to support engineering, procurement, construction and execution planning for the initial phase of the Ohio Power campus. This builds on our existing relationship with Kiewit at Aurora-INL.

The experience we are developing together in Idaho can now inform the work required to supply Meta Power from the Oklo 1.2 gigawatt power campus in Ohio. That continuity is important. We are working with Kiewit to carry forward lessons across design, procurement, constructability, scheduling cost reduction and control and field execution. The objective is to establish repeatable approaches that can support multiple Aurora powerhouses rather than one stand-alone facility.

Grid planning is part of that same strategy. We are advancing PJM interconnection applications, transmission planning and related technical studies while integrating those requirements into slightly out infrastructure planning and the sequencing of future phases. Oklo is building for fleet deployment. The work underway at Aurora-INL, the capabilities demonstrated through growth and the planning now advancing with Kiewit in Ohio are intended to compound across projects rather than remain isolated within a single asset. We are also strengthening the internal capabilities that support execution across the platform.

During the quarter, we acquired ARMEC and Creative Engineers. Those acquisitions add specialized engineering, manufacturing, testing and capabilities that can support repeatable deployment across the Oklo business lines while also continuing work with existing third-party customers. ARMEC is already contributing to engineering and procurement work for Aurora-INL. We are leveraging the team's experience, manufacturing capabilities and supplier network to support critical component development and improve the connection between design and fabrication.

We are also seeing the benefit of ARMEC's deep roots in the Oak Ridge nuclear community. The acquisition expands our access to experienced talent and has increased interest from people who want to contribute to Oklo's mission. The manufacturing impact is beginning to show as well. Multiple new parts have already moved through production since the acquisition, demonstrating how bringing these capabilities closer to our engineering organization can improve the pace of execution.

Creative Engineers or CEI, adds roughly 30 years of experience in sodium and other alkali metal systems. Since the acquisition, CEI scope has expanded beyond its prior work with Oklo and now supports both our reactor and recycling organizations. The strategic rationale is straightforward. These acquisitions shorten the feedback loop between engineering, procurement, manufacturing, testing and deployment. The experience gained on one project can then be retained and applied across the next. These internal capabilities also strengthen one of the most important enablers of deployment and power delivery fuel. Our strategy is to build a diversified domestic fuel supply across sourcing, fabrication and recycling. So future Aurora deployments are not dependent on a single fuel pathway.

Our fuel strategy is intentionally diversified because fuel availability remains one of the most important constraints on advanced nuclear deployment. We are not relying on a single supplier, a single feedstock or a single part of the fuel cycle, we are advancing multiple complementary pathways across commercial helo, government materials and recycling. On commercial HALEU, the Centrus letter of intent supports the creation of a domestic supply pathway with enough material contemplated to support up to 5 Aurora powerhouses for multiple years.

We are also advancing potential government material pathways DOE selected Oklo for advanced negotiations regarding surplus plutonium that could be fabricated into reactor fuel. If awarded, this fuel could provide an important bridge for earlier deployments while new domestic enrichment capacity continues to scale. That opportunity remains subject to a final DOE agreement, safeguards and material allocation. equipment required for our Aurora fuel fabrication facility, or A3F, is now in production, supporting planned installation and start-up activities in 2027. This builds the fabrication infrastructure needed to convert our first core load of EBR-II used fuel into usable fuel for Aurora-INL.

We continue advancing our advanced fuel center in Tennessee facility and process line engineering are progressing. NRC license application readiness work is underway in civil engineering and site grading permitting are advancing. Our relationship with standard Nuclear also creates a potential third-party commercial pathway for recycled material. Each fuel pathway opens up supply optionality and strengthens our ability to continue deploying as the fuel market evolves.

The Centrus Letter of Intent advances an important domestic fuel pathway for our Aurora deployments. Under the letter of intent, which anticipates a further definitive agreement, Centrus would supply HALEU for multiple years of initial core and reload needs for up to 5 Aurora powerhouses with deliveries expected to begin in 2029. The agreement could also include prepayments from Oklo either directly or via customer contributions to support fuel production for our planned Ohio campus build-out.

The strategic significance extend beyond the fuel supply itself. In Southern Ohio, several of the critical elements needed for deployment are beginning to come together in one region. Domestic HALEU production, Oklo's planned 1.2 gigawatt clean energy campus, customer demand, existing energy infrastructure and execution planning with Kiewit Kiewit. Building a credible domestic supply pathway helps reduce fuel constraints and provides greater visibility as we advance project development.

We are connecting fuel planning directly to customer demand and asset deployment rather than treating fuel as a separate supply chain issue to be addressed at some undefined point in the future. Fuel certainty supports deployment and power delivery certainty. This LOI strengthens both the planned Ohio campus and the domestic advanced nuclear ecosystem developing around it.

With that, I will now turn it over to Craig for a financial update. Craig?

Thanks, Jake. 2026 continues to be a strong year for the company as we added strength to our balance sheet while deploying capital into flagship projects across our platform. Oklo's year-to-date net loss for the second quarter was $81.6 million, made up of loss from operations of $124.2 million, offset by $44.5 million of net interest and dividend income. Our year-to-date cash used in operating activities of $65.5 million includes our net loss of $81.6 million primarily adjusted for noncash charges of $29.9 million from stock-based compensation as well as $13.8 million of net changes in working capital and other adjustments.

Year-to-date, cash used in investing activities was $912.7 million, including net cash used for purchases of marketable securities of $743.6 million. In addition, capital spend of $126.9 million increased as we continued planned investments into property, plant and equipment across all 3 business lines. Oklo ended the second quarter with cash and marketable securities of $3 billion, comprising cash and cash equivalents of $1.6 billion and marketable securities of $1.4 billion. This balance includes the additional $1.9 billion of capital generated from the execution of our ATM programs in 2026.

We are updating our 2026 cash flow guidance to reflect our strategy to bring forward select project activities to increase execution confidence. Although capital spending through the first half of the year remains below the expected full year range, the spending profile is expected to be weighted towards the second half of the year. We now have better visibility into specific procurement, construction, fuel and project payment milestones supporting the updated ranges on our first-of-a-kind deployments.

We now expect cash used in operating activities to be in the range of $120 million to $150 million. compared with our prior range of $80 million to $100 million. The increase in operating cash used primarily reflects certain first-of-a-kind project costs at Aurora-INL that were expensed. Cash used to support the build-out of grid interconnections at Aurora-INL and acceleration of early stage deployment costs on other projects. The increase in operating cash used does not reflect a material higher cash burn for general corporate purposes. It reflects research and development cost to support the build-out of our projects.

We also now expect cash used for purchases of property, plant and equipment to be in the range of $400 million to $500 million compared with our prior range of $350 million to $450 million. The increase in spending on PP&E is primarily driven by accelerated procurement and construction activity at Aurora-INL and an opportunistic field purchase at attractive terms to support future isotope projects. Given the strength of our balance sheet and ongoing capital raise activity, we chose to spend opportunistically rather than allow procurement timing to potentially put project delivery at risk. This is not a change in strategy, but rather reflective of actions taken by Oklo to ensure project delivery across all 3 business lines.

As engineering, procurement, construction, fuel and interconnection activities continue to advance for our first-of-a-kind projects, we are gaining greater visibility into opportunities to bring forward critical work that supports Aurora-INL's planned 2028 startup. This is why we have raised capital proactively and built a strong balance sheet. Our liquidity allows us to secure critical path items advanced work when it is ready and make execution decisions to prioritize project schedules. The updated 2026 plan is supported by our existing liquidity of cash and marketable securities combining the standard just over $3 billion at the end of the second quarter.

Before we close, I want to summarize why we believe Oklo is differentiated. We are building an integrated nuclear platform across power, fuel and isotopes. Our fast reactor technology is designed for simpler, repeatable deployment. While our fuel sourcing fabrication and recycling strategy is intended to strengthen long-term supply security. Our build, own and operate model allows us to retain the economics operating experience and capabilities created across the platform.

Just as importantly, we are now demonstrating that we can execute, translating strategy into constructed assets, operating experience and commercial progress. Together, these elements position Oklo to convert growing customer demand into operating nuclear assets and recurring revenue.

With that, thank you again for joining us. We will now open the call up for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Nate Pendleton with Texas Capital.

Congrats on reaching criticality at Groves. I wanted to dig a little bit deeper into the use of plutonium as a bridge fuel. Can you update us on the time line for allocations? And then perhaps more specifically following the flat top campaign, how did the measured reactivity coefficients compared to your models. With the delayed neutron fraction below U-235, I'd be curious how the feedback mechanisms come together and give you the transient response you're looking for in fuel.

Thank you. It's a great question. Actually, we were just talking about that. yesterday and the day before, post criticality it grows, talking about how the comparisons are from the dynamic response and a very fast plutonium system versus the moderated system here at Groves. So anyway, I appreciate it.

I think to go to the part of your question on the plutonium part, the allocations, we were excited about what came out with respect to the Department of Energy moving forward with us as part of the process here. It's still developing and pending engagement with them. In terms of specific allocations. As a reminder, the overall total that they are allocating out in this tranche is about 20 tons, which would be divided up across a couple of recipients which translates out to quite a bit of HALEU equivalent fuel.

Just for a quick recap, the concept here is you take the plutonium and you can blend it with uranium, whether that be natural or depleted or even low-enriched depending on how you want to design the system, but to get a HALEU equivalent material, you typically blend it with a depleted or natural uranium stock and you can achieve have equivalent performance at about somewhere between 10% and 13% plutonium content depending on the load, maybe plus up a little bit depending on the exact characteristics of the material. So that is still in development and progress, and we'll keep folks updated as that comes along.

With respect to the work we did out of Los Alamos, so that was one of the things that we were excited about that was partnering with the lab to take assembly or critical assembly critical for the first time. We did it in a fast reactor system, which was pretty cool for us to do back in December. And we also ran it through various reactivity feedback. We didn't just take it at effectively -- this is your power critical. We did put up to about -- from the calculations about 2 kilowatts or so of power into the system, and we're able to keep it up and then watch the activity feedbacks come in and work.

Between being a fast system and being a plutonium system with the uranium reflector, it moves quick, but it also demonstrates the incredibly strong reactivity feedback coefficient, particularly the thermal expansion coefficient as well as some of the doppler effects to be a very tightly coupled, very responsive system where we were able to heat it up until it turned itself basically off by thermal expansion. And then even going into maximum reactivity insertion at those temperatures, we could not turn it back on. So a great validation point.

The thing that was shocking to me was how fast -- like when I say shocking to me, I've been around fast reactors, I've been involved in fast reactors in the past. But this thing just went so quick and so fast to come like to basically be so responsive. It was like a perfectly tuned and engineered sports car to the max with respect to how quickly it would ramp but also how quickly it would stabilize. So that was a key thing.

So the reactivity feedback coefficients, the overall behavior, all those things that we did, the Power maneuvers, all those things that we went through and that came out generally in the expected ranges, I'd say, is what we calculated. It was great to get higher fidelity and great to come in with that. But you're right to note between being a fast system, you have a very short neutron generation time line -- lifetime and then on top of that, having a pretty low delaying transaction compared to E35, it's a quickly resolving system, but that gives you great like, great, frankly, stability and very tight responses in the system.

I think I was debriefing the team on the way back from those experiments and said it was I think like driving that system is -- I've never driven one, but it feels like it's probably like the equivalent of going into an F1 car. Nothing gets really like faster and more responsive than that system. Everything else we built afterwards and every other kind of system would be a lot more, I would call it, pedestrian, but it was pretty cool to see those kind of dynamics and great validation of the inherent feedback effects and any small [indiscernible].

Your next question from -- comes from the line of George Gianarikas with Canaccord Genuity.

Could you maybe please provide an update on the radioisotope production road map that grows? Which specific isotopes are you're prioritizing furnishing production? And when do you anticipate recognizing first revenue?

Yes, I'll start with what we did at Groves, which is really important. It is a full-scale isotope reactor. That said, we're going to be going through all the various like operational commissioning and everything else all the way out for a bit. As we are positioning ourselves generally speaking, the key thing we got out of this was execution, right? We got an execution repetition down and building a real full reactor. This wasn't something we put in a national lab. It wasn't something we put at subscale. It was the full scale, full civil construction, right?

We went full excavation. We went 60 feet deep. We but we built this like we will build our future is top reactors with the ability to take direct lessons, learn and then rate on them. So kind of showing, I think, one of the things that we try to do is and focus on iterating at scale and not subscale. So that was a big win for us with this plant and into doing -- got to turn on a full [indiscernible] reactor under a year, which is pretty awesome.

That said, to get to the point on the isotope production. It's going to depend on a couple of factors, but we anticipate sort of in the next year, like in about 12 months or so, we'll get through all those different capabilities, and we'll start producing some R&D quantities of material. And then in parallel ramping up our next isotopes projects that would be producing at more scale. On top of that, we also have additional isotope opportunities that are not in reactor. And we're -- we have our Idaho [indiscernible] Chemistry Lab that is NRC license and is able to be working with various quantities material, and we continue to sort of operate there and scale up there.

And so there's opportunities on sort of the isotope recovery and refinement side that are independent of the reactor and then the reactor adds a ton of value into those. So those are things we're actively moving into and embarking upon, but those are kind of the time lines for how we're seeing in reactor production with the opportunity and the potential possibly for some production of -- basically by refining existing inventories, recovering and purifying of other isotopes that are in either stranded sources or similar kind of I would say, media that we can take out and package into product through that lab that we have the potential to possibly be producing before -- inside of that 12-month window.

And Craig, I don't know if you want to add anything else on the details...

Yes, George, just I think we think the first revenue coming out of the isotope business will more likely be from the lab facility in Idaho as opposed to Groves and as we noted in the material, we've got commercial discussions ongoing with several companies around potential offtake. And revenue though from that is more likely to come in the first part of next year, just given how we kind of see the timing of all those pieces.

Your next question comes from the line of Joseph Osha with Guggenheim.

To return to the fuel question. I just want to make sure I understand. I mean you've got the initial couple of loads for INL from EBR is the plan to go to the blended plutonium after that? Or is Centrus going to come online before that? I just want to make sure I understand the order of operations here.

Both. This is the key thing that's really important for us. We're really uniquely positioned between having -- basically line of sight and partnerships on Centrus on the HALEU side from commercial production add in the government materials from EBR-II fuel and then add into that the plutonium fuel. We're uniquely positioned to be able to use a multi-varied fuel strategy and then add on top of that recycling when we turn that online to provide kind of this enduring effective fuel capability.

That's the key thing. We are versatile and what we can take as fuel. That means we can take a diverse set -- a diverse mix of fuels, and that's super important because that gives us a lot of fuel independence a lot -- I think this is one of the most severely underestimated things that we're doing as a company is that we have that ability to have and use all of the sources that we can tap into and that we get access to. And we're investing and developing that capability to be able to do that. But that's innately unique characteristic of a fast reactor. And we're designing for that, right?

And so it's really a blended mix. The plan and the goal is to be able to take and receive all the different fuel sources we have that stretches the fuel resources we have, while we spin our recycling capabilities, while we support enrichment expansion, and that's how we see this all come together with respect to being able to fuel these things.

So to put it in summary, first reactor from EBR-II recovered material, scale-up is supported by plutonium-blended plutonium fuel as a bridging fuel. -- to ramp with the uranium enrichment scale up. That then goes on, right, and for a very, very long time or use of in retranium and then at the end of the day, recycling, which can sort of offset the need for everything because of its ability to extend the resource so tremendously. So then you have the recycling that bolts on the backside of that. So it's a three-pronged approach that's an enduring advantage that you can't really touch.

And just to zoom out to like the 100,000 [ per view ], we have fast reactors with recycling like what we're developing, have the potential to tap in and own resources and reserves of heavy metals on this planet and power the entire plant's energies for billions of years, right? The first principle is the physics support that. That's why that was something people wanted to do. That's why we're doing it.

And George, just as I added to Jake's question because we're progressing more than one fuel pathway, that optimization of kind of which fuel is going to come next in the pecking order is actually something that we keep up to date, but it's -- we keep up to date because we keep pushing on more commercial opportunities to make sure that, for us, fuel is not a constraint. It's an opportunity.

And just -- I would assume that we get maybe a little more detail once we know what the allocation of plutonium is going to look like from the DOE because that gives you a sense correctly. And can you remind me -- I'll go away in just a minute what the expected timing is on that allocation?

That timing is really being not dictated by Oklo. So I would not want to throw out a date because it's really not under our control. But I guess the flipped answer is we're closer than we were.

Your next question comes from the line of Ryan Pfingst with B. Riley Securities.

Congrats on the criticality milestones. I wanted to ask about the nuclear lifestyle innovation campuses and what that program could do for a project like the Advanced Fuel Center in Tennessee in terms of bringing in capital or other resources.

Yes. I mean I think what we see with that is the, I would say, full-throated support moving forward into a much more, I would say, effective constructive and scalable solution on sort of nuclear fuel, frankly, life cycle management. What that means is I think the approaches of the past have not exactly scaled the best in any form of execution, namely [indiscernible] Mountain. And so the idea here is to open up different disposition pathways that also capture innovations in the technology front.

Again, this is probably another part like this specific piece of what's happening, I should say this. The [indiscernible] initiative is also probably one of the more widely underappreciated sort of efforts at the policy level that has incredible potential impacts on the frankly, future of energy for the world, especially in the United States. Because what it's doing is saying, hey, let's get communities who want to take this material and see the upside of being able to post a combined ecosystem on the life cycle side for used fuel coming in, recycling, being a cornerstone piece of that, disposing ways through more innovative methods like boreholes, which are far more capital efficient and scalable and just better than mine repositories in most all regards.

And then advanced fuel fabrication that can take the recycled material, the ecosystem that bolts on to isotopes from recycled material. The fuel from the fabrication of recycled fuel into basically fast reactors. And then the power that comes from it to then support other parts of the nuclear ecosystem and other industry, right, because you start creating these kind of energy super campuses or super regional campuses that happened because of what happens there, that's a tremendous thing to be able to tap into.

If you think about the used fuel inventories in the United States today, it's more than 4 Saudi Arabia's equivalent of oil energy, right, in terms of content. I mean it's almost the entire world's energy supplies that we know of in terms of known oil reserves. And so these states, if you get 3 states that get this, they're getting more than 1 Saudi Arabia of energy content. They get to basically have in-house in-state. And then every year, they get replenished by about a Norway worth of energy, right? Like that's incredible.

And I don't mean annual production. I'm talking about known total oil reserves equivalent, right? This is what they would have. So the economic implications are tremendous. There are a number of things that will flow from this at the capital level, right? And a lot of that's being pursued and developed. But it's a whole government approach to say, "Hey, how do we manage this and solve for this? And the fact that you had I think it was 26 states step up and say, "Hey, we're interested in taking this material. I mean that was incredible. And then clearly shows that it was competitive and the 5 that have been down selected are clearly the ones that are going to sort of raise their hand and showed we're eager to be partners here.

So -- but we're very excited about it for Oklo because of the opportunity to play in that ecosystem. If you think about the key enablers there it's recycling, it's reactors to use recycled fuel, it's the opportunities to monetize and sell the coproducts of recycling? I mean that's what we do. So we're very excited about this. And I think it's a tremendous move to sort of unleash the ecosystem around frankly, advancing nuclear innovation.

Your next question comes from Brian Lee with Goldman Sachs.

Maybe just a 2-part question. be curious if you could provide a bit more detail on what exactly is being pulled forward with the higher CapEx budget this year? And any way to quantify the pull forward in terms of whether it's quarters or months. that you are accelerating the plan? And then secondarily, a pretty big step-up in OpEx here this quarter, both R&D and G&A. Can you kind of walk us through that, how to think about the OpEx growth for the balance of the year?

Yes, Brian, I'll take both of those. I think in terms of the capital spend, it's and pull forward, it's not just dedicated to 1 business, but a good portion of that is related to the project at Idaho National Labs or INL. And it's really around just wanting to make sure that we've got long lead time procurement spend in place and activity in place. and also making sure that we've got things in place for the interconnection to the grid. And it's less about bringing forward the time line because 2028 is still the target to go live, but it's more about creating more assurance for that and making sure that long lead time items don't impact the critical path for those projects.

In terms of the OpEx spend, I think we are growing headcount. And I'd say most of that growth, though, is not for functional growth. It's really for engineering and technical growth Part of what drove a little bit of that higher OpEx. And I think I said this at the time of the initial guidance is when you're doing a first-of-a-kind project, there's always a little bit of accounting interrogation in terms of what needs to be capitalized versus what needs to be expensed. And it just ends up that we're just needing to expense a few more items in the quarter given -- just given the nature of the spin.

But really, all of this is about project delivery, project assurance and just making sure that we can hit the critical path. And for Aurora-INL, it's not just hitting the critical path on the powerhouse itself. But we're also in good situation to start equipment delivery and installation at the Aurora fuel fabrication facility that Ryan Webster and team lead so that we can start fabricating fuel for that first powerhouse that will go live in 2028.

Your next question comes from the line of Christopher Souther with Truist.

Congrats on the progress here. Can you give us a sense as to how the all-in spend at or I&L is shaking out with Hewitt -- just any kind of update around the costs that you expect for that first of a kind project would be very helpful. And then I know we're getting EBR-II fuel in the DOE there, but are we able to secure the full fuel for the 75-megawatt operating level? I wasn't sure if that was updated yet.

Yes, I'll start an inverse order on the fuel and then hand it to Craig for the cost part. So yes, between what we've -- we're working with and additionally, what we're seeing evolving on the plutonium side, we feel quite confident in having all the fuel we need for that plant to run at full power without any changes in course.

Yes. And in terms of costs, we're not yet providing full guidance on that partially because we're still narrowing in on what total cost for the project is going to be with Kiewit as well as looking at what will be the glide path of not just cost for the Idaho project, but the future projects that more likely than not for power will take place in the know-how campus. As we narrow in on those numbers, through the rest of this year when we've got a more tight number to provide to the market, we'll do that then.

Got it. Okay. That makes sense. And then you had called out at the beginning of the call, partner capital opportunities. I just wanted to get a sense, as you're looking at the different business lines here, historically, you've talked about on the steel side, some partner opportunities. But on the Powerhouse side, is that an area where you're having more active discussions? Or is it still just kind of reiterating the optionality over time within the business model. I was curious if there was an emphasis there intentionally.

Yes. I'd say if you look at the -- Power side of the -- the customer a bit of your question, it's really around -- we've already had the meta payment. We've had the Equinix payment. And so it does feel like those discussions are a little bit more advanced. But what Jake talked earlier about the ink campuses and what excites me about that, maybe from my oil and gas background, is this as an opportunity to create new energy corridors across the United States. And those are other ways that people could invest at the asset and project level in our business.

So in terms of the third leg of the stool, our isotopes business, that's probably where we're at most of the early days in terms of what a customer investment in the business could look like. We have brought on in the quarter, first by the name of Ray Wang, is our business unit leader for that business. And I know it's one of the things that's very high on radar screen as well.

Your next question comes from the line of Jeremy Tonet with JPMorgan.

Congratulations on criticality.

It was pretty cool.

Just wanted to see, I guess, you've successfully been using M&A as tool to both, I guess, the supply chain. I'm just wondering, along those lines, are there any other areas you think that would be of interest to you and that would make sense to kind of pursue more?

I won't go deep into the things we are looking at, but we do continue to look. I think it's things that would still be in the scale of ARMEC and CEI, but it really is about -- when we look at building out asset deployment capability in the firm, you can do that by hiring staff so building the capability internally or you can go and buy it. And I think when we see those bid opportunities, it's really around the strength of the team and the capability that we can bring in-house, and we're really pleased with what we did in that regard in the quarter and looking at it as an accelerator.

I think if there's one thing that people can take away from this call, it's like we are putting assets on the ground. We've successfully gone critical. And now we're really just looking at more that we can do to provide assurance around asset deployment for all 3 businesses. So if we see an opportunity to scale that capability at the right price point, then we've got the capital to do that, and we'll look to execute on those opportunities.

Great. And then maybe just given the progress that you've had, just wondering if this is impacted, I guess, the pace of the tone of commercial conversations as far as offtake is concerned?

I would say that every time we do something, it creates more credibility, and it does help those conversations.

Your next question comes from the line of Rinny Singh with Bank of America.

I guess just focusing on the customer landscape. As you're kind of looking at these milestones hit and customers are kind of looking at the regulatory, the fueling side and the actual execution and cost side of things. How -- what -- out of those like buckets what's kind of giving them the most confidence in moving forward? And kind of what do you think are the pathway to watch essentially from here in those buckets?

Yes, Rinny, when I talk about the business, it does feel like we've got in a sense, unconstrained demand. So how do we unconstrain the supply for that. And I think it kind of -- and I think I've always talked about there's regulatory deconstraining, there is fuel. There's procurement construction and then making sure we've got the capital. It's almost like though, I think it depends on the customer. I think and their level of education. I think some are looking more to the regulatory pathway and the regulatory acceleration. Others are looking to fuel. But I think if you look at everything we're doing, we're working to deconstrain the system across all those parameters, so we can meet that demand.

I'll also say the customers who are -- the more they come up the learning curve, though, I think the more they recognize the importance of fuel at our fuel diversification strategy really does resonate with them.

Your next question comes from the line of Derek Soderberg with Cantor Fitzgerald.

Just one question for me around interconnection. I was wondering if you could provide a status update on the specific PJM interconnection applications required for the near term deployment road map. Can you guys talk about where you sit in the interconnection queue and broadly, do you see any potential setbacks just given some of the interconnection challenges and backlog?

We are participating in the interconnection process and have more than one opportunity, I guess, on the docket with PJM along with others. And really to come to a bit of your question, what's the watch point. It's just the turnaround time on that and just making sure that we're staying on top of it. Mike Donohue, who we brought in over a year ago and his team are leading that effort, and I think they bring a lot of depth of expertise. But it is an important watch point, which is why we are I think, on top of it and making sure that we're not counting on just 1 avenue or 1 path to put power in the grid in that area.

Your next question comes from the line of Jed Dorsheimer with William Blair.

Just Jay, a question for you on the down selection process. So I guess 2 parts. First is, historically, in markets like this, we've seen sort of a down selection to 2 or 3 designs. Do you think that advanced reactors will go through that same process. And then secondly, the tech is classically losing the politics while having the policy around data centers. I'm just curious how you see the nuclear industry classically lost a similar battle around the technology that set us back 30 years. I'm curious what your thoughts might be on how to resolve the pitch works that have come out around data centers, which are based not on facts, but on more emotions and failings?

Yes, it's great questions. Thank you. Appreciate it. I think what I see is the opportunity in the market space here is incredibly large. And I think there's kind of -- when I think about the industry, there's a tale of a couple of sort of cities. You've got to have the legacy approach that's going to -- has a track record behind pieces, but has some significant, I would say, cost floors based on sort of the way things have been done and not necessarily leaning into more modernized ways of -- well, frankly, of everything needed to deliver nuclear plants.

I mean, look, we just built our first nuclear reactor. And by all the metrics we can research. It's at a world record in the fastest fully privately built reactor ever. Why? Because we can do things better and differently, right? We're leaning into that as not just Oklo but as an industry. So the opportunity space is just amazingly cool.

That said -- so you have that, right? So I guess what I'm trying to say is that naturally to me is going to create a more vibrant ecosystem and you have different applications and opportunities in different need sets across the space from maybe small microreactors that serve niche applications and opportunities to scalable, small to midsized reactors that have unique deployment opportunities to the very large reactors that build off some strong legacies. I think you're going to see multiple players in each of these spaces too in the near to midterm, scale up and go, not to mention different fuel cycle strategies and different -- not just electric output energy products, in other words, heat. And so it's pretty attractive, right?

And I think one thing that's often forgotten is on the heat side, one of the key things there is like really all types of reactors can deliver useful heat for product heat. The vast majority of product is well served under 200 degrees integrate, which all reactors can deliver to. Now there's some niche applications that get about 400 degrees integrated, we can deliver between 400, 450 comfortably. We can get a little bit higher in time. but that serves the vast majority of reachable opportunities there. And then you have like a big island of heat needs that are well over 1,000 degrees, which, frankly, the cost to deliver nuclear heat into with all the materials and requirements you need just to me, it doesn't make any sense compared to electrifying it or making different heat carriers, whether that be synthetic [indiscernible] or hydrogen or whatever it might be.

So long story short, the heat market as well is going to drive and see different applications of different types. So I actually think it's going to be pretty vibrant ecosystem. Now over time -- well, sorry, barren ecosystem. What's in common with all those is they all produced use fuel. What are we doing? The ability to recycle, right? So this gives us a huge opportunity to support everything not just our reactors, but everything that gets built. And then that producing fuel helps us make our reactors and other reactions that can use this material most efficiently, even more economically scalable, which ultimately to me, does converge at some long form of scale towards fast tractors and recycling because of the inherent benefits that recycling and fast reactors have. So over long time scale. I'm talking about century plus time scales, I think physics will drive that convergence.

Additionally, I think then on the other side of things with respect to I think the data center side and what we're seeing, interestingly, where we built the Groves reactor in Texas, there's a lot of concern, you see a lot of no data center signs, a lot of excitement and enthusiasm about what we're doing, which is cool and some result of partial results of intentionality and how we've engaged and worked with folks here.

But I think what we're also observing is that the data center community and the hyperscalers have had their heads kind of low and they need to stand up and start telling the story about what's really going on here. And I think we're finding them starting to do that. And I'm also seeing that we're seeing a very aggressively shortened cycle around the perception gaps. I think there's policy dynamics and there's community engagement that can really go a long way that people are now, I think, breaking up to and catching up there, which is great on the hyperscaler deployment side.

But I also think that we see -- to me, it's still one of the great unlocks on nuclear was as silly as it sounds, the Internet, which like people were fed misinformation and disinformation actively by antinuclear group for decades, and that poisoned the well for a while until folks started to have open access information where they could actually look up stuff and realize, oh, nuclear is cool, right? And a lot of the gateway to that was advanced nuclear and then people realize, well, actually all nuclears are really cool. They've been kind of misinformed and distracted.

And now I think we see -- I think there's a similar dynamic that's going to be emerging in the data center side, but they have to take advantage of the moment to do that, and they have to get in front of it -- play catch up and get in front of it. in different areas. And there are different communities that really want them to understand them and they just need to tell the story of like, hey, actually, a lot of next-generation systems are very, very little water usage, all these other things that kind of make a big difference in terms of how people actually perceive them and lean into that.

So that's my view and my optimism on that front. But we're seeing that firsthand, right, where we're active and where we're building and developing, especially in Ohio where folks are really stepping up and saying, okay, we need to change how we talk about this and we need to engage a community, and we need to have people understand what these things really are, and we're seeing those movements start to catch and take hold but there's some work to do, right? There's definitely some work to do.

But I also think that some of the high-level news coverage on some of this is a little more focused and the more towards the negative, it's more sensationalized than I think what we're seeing on the ground in some places.

Your next question comes from the line of Max Hopkins with CLSA.

Just wanted to ask on the NVIDIA and Microsoft partnerships, how the AI is now permeating everywhere. Is there a specific function of close strategy that you think is going to benefit most from putting AI into the strategy? And how fast can that accelerate time to commercialization.

Yes. I think -- I mean there's a lot there. And it's easy to point to -- AIs everywhere and ever using for every single thing. And I would argue there's the administrative usage, which does help on things. But on the actual design, analysis, data processing side. It is -- I personally think hard to overstate how effective and how like significant the impacts are going to be. So there's kind of 2 major things we talked about here. There's our partnership with Los Alamos and NVIDIA which is applying state-of-the-art expertise from almost into our compute from NVIDIA and state-of-the-art intent and practical application and fabrication expertise from Oklo into combined sort of ecosystem model to modernize how we look at manage and treat -- sorry, design to accommodate and fabricate fuel from titanium inventories.

And that matters a lot because taking the material and putting it into a fabricatable form, there's losses and inefficiencies. There's also dynamics around field performance. And there's a lot of data out there that has been in different circles of pods, but never really aggregated in a way that you couldn't do -- let me phrase this, you just can't do quite as effectively without AI, frankly. That makes a big difference in accelerating the usability and expanding the ability of different materials there and extending the resource. That's cool, very exciting piece of what we're doing.

Additionally, there's for me part of the Project Genesis efforts, which is broadly unlocking agentic AI design capabilities at risk of using all the buzzwords, but literally building out AI design agents to frankly, expand and accelerate the entire design characterization space, the analysis based in certain quantification space. All of that translates to high-performing designs sooner and more margin recovery sooner in designs that allow you to get more power from each system. So in other words, what that translates to is lower cost of dollars to get to more power extracted per capital investment of the plants.

That is happening in real time. We're seeing it because we're accelerating some of those reactor design workflows by -- I mean, it's incredible, right? We're doing work that would take weeks to -- I mean, months or several months, getting it done in less in a day, right, you're getting to in hours. And we're seeing that on top of that, we're also finding a lot of applications that are going to play out in other parts of the technology system in Stack.

We used it to help us accelerate commissioning the Groves reactor with the control systems we had, we were able to use it in a couple of different applications where we were able to bring in AI for supporting out like the future iterations on the control platform that Groves gives us to move more quickly on and update that into potential applications to accelerate and improve performance on whether it Groves to Aurora or whatever comes after all these kind of plants. So like it's going to be very exciting to see how this comes forward and we're -- I don't even think we're in the early innings. We're not even in like the warm-up period or maybe we're basically right now.

But it's hard to overstate the [indiscernible] and the super sort of acceleration that it gives the design engineers and then how you can automate that translation into documentation with such high quality, like it's incredible and documentation is such a key thing for all of this. So it's pretty exciting. It's not just -- it's not just buzzwords. It's not just the usage of it. It's actually being impactful. And I think in some of these industries like this, some of these impacts might be some of the largest that there are.

Jake, it's further down the road, but when I think about Oklo having a fleet of powerhouses having multiple radioisotope facilities and all of the plant operating data that is going to come out of that and the optimization around that is also -- I know it's further down the road, but it's really cool to think about what artificial intelligence can do in that space as well. I appreciate the clarity. And congratulations on all the progress. It's very exciting.

Your next question comes from the line of Sherif Elmaghrabi with BTIG.

I guess I apologize if I missed this earlier in the call, but at a high level, since you can achieve HALEU equivalent performance by blending plutonium with EU Curious why that isn't a long-term answer to react or power given that fuel that's available today.

Yes. I mean -- so a couple of things. One, yes, you can achieve that performance. In fact, plutonium is an even better fuel. But plutonium is limited inventory, and that's not something that makes a lot of sense to get to the game of producing more fuel of given kind of like the cost and focused production of just that material. But when you extrapolate transuranic banter that's produced from recycling gives us somewhat similar performance, and that's why we go to that.

But this is why the mix is so important, right? Like the amount of plutonium material is sizable. It supports couple of gigawatt up to potentially a couple of gigawatts depending on allocations. That's a great bridging fuel to then transition to HALEU and then also to recycling, right? And so -- that's why this multipronged strategy makes sense both from a scalability perspective, but also a temporal cadence perspective. But yes, like it's a tremendous resource.

And to be honest, this is what the first tranche is. There's more of this kind of material and similar material that might be deemed in excess in inventory that internationally countries may want to get rid of because they look at it as a liability that could open the door for significantly more of that plutonium material to be used as an expanded bridge fuel. It's pretty attractive. But the terminal state to me for nuclear is ultimately fast directors and recycling with transgenic brain fuel on the recycling side. because, again, that gives you, but at a lower cost, basically a commensurate type performance, but also nearly like practically, I would say, almost limitless source of material because of the ability to tap into the heavy metal reserves we have on the planet.

Your final question comes from the line of Craig Shere with Tuohy.

Data centers are obviously the most exciting opportunity, but there's plenty of off-grid and industrial heat applications for SMRs and your Alaska Air Force deployment base deployment and certainly looks to be more environmentally focused than power focused. I wonder if you could elaborate. You kind of already alluded to the 400, 450 degrees center grade run rate. But maybe you could discuss a little more the comparison and contrast between Aurora powerhouses potential thermal integration and output versus some of your SMR peers with high temperature gas cool designs running on TRISO fuel.

Yes. I mean -- so I think this is one of the key things is a huge amount of the processes that we see in the market is very well serviced below 450. The marginal increase in market opportunities above that to like 600, 650 are present. I'll say the like they're pretty like marginal at best, they're pretty small. And then getting to temperatures then like above that, there's not a lot of exciting things until you get above 850, 1,000 integrate and then above that, there's some interesting opportunities, especially when you get closer to 1,200, 1,400.

There's -- I mean, there's no economically viable way to move heat at those temperatures at those distances. I mean, the materials you would need are incredibly expensive and vastly like underdeveloped just doesn't make sense compared to converting the energy into different forms. But you can use that heat I mean, since you can do so much with sub 400, 450 C heat, that's where so much of the market is. And at the end of the day, like it's about what are the effective cost of getting to those points.

So 1 of the arguments and one of the -- if you think about the history of nuclear, a lot of the a lot of the technology development that happened was centered around articulated research and development, market potentials and opportunities and needs and one of the justifying reasons to support some of these higher temperature operations was sort of the -- well, you could open up these other kind of niche heat opportunities if you get slightly above the normal temperature ranges.

But even above like 550, right, somewhere between 500, 600 C that's kind -- and setting record can extend to that point in terms of process output, there's probably a little more technology work to get there, but I think most of the met allergists we feel comfortable there. Once you get above that, you start having to go to super alloys that are just cost prohibitive to transport heat at different distances. So at the end of the day, you're basically going to collapse like most things into on light water reactors are going to deliver heat economically all about the same temperature, whether it's sodium, whether it's lead, whether it's salt weather it's gas and fuel type, just won't matter as much there.

But at the end of the day, right, it will take a little time to get there. And in the meantime, you can serve and do it quite cost effectively at those lower temperature levels. And given the inherent in benefits of like pressurized water in terms of power density and then sodium in terms of viewing better power density when it heats your output and you can serve in those markets as a some pretty sizable advantages and the sort of diminishing marginal opportunity set to get higher temperatures just isn't quite -- it's just not quite justified, I guess.

So I think at the end of the day, you're going to see some opportunities in applications because that's what the R&D narrative was for a long time. But the reality is most of those markets are serving that size. And I think what we see is a lot of those customers are excited about the opportunity to get heat for a number of different industrial applications and the art of the possible is still radically underexplored there because most I would say, our industrial entities that are, I would call them eager to be market followers but not first customers.

And so part of is on the data center side, there's actually some opportunities, including some of the things we announced last year with [ Vertiv ] in terms of being able to do heat and power kind of -- well, basically keep your in cooling systems and then also what we're doing with the Air Force, like a lot of the signs up pretty attractively for a pretty cool outlook for heat applications for sodium systems that are quite compelling.

We have reached the end of our Q&A session. I will now turn the call back to Jake Dewitte, CEO, for closing remarks.

Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. It's been an exciting last quarter, exciting couple of days for us. Turn on our first reactor. I think one of the cool things is -- just going back to sum this up, what we've proven is execution in turning on a full asset, and we did it the entire stack, if you will. We did the full stack. A big differentiation between what we did and what was otherwise done in the reactor pilot program was we built a full nuclear reactor with full civil excavation with full construction.

We didn't just put a slab on the ground and put a kind of a loose fabric building up or a steel tent building up. We didn't go into another laboratory and do it the same way in those areas. We thought we can see a lot of value in doing that, and we think that there's reasons why we did work similar to that, including the plutonium work we did out of Nevada. But for us, we wanted to go and learn at scale. And that's what we saw the reactor pilot program in enabling us to do build a full-scale reactor, do the full civil construction, build it, so it was repeatable, buy everything or make everything ourselves based on what we needed to do, learn then how to scale that forward so that we can build on this experience that learn and do it better the next time and also set up the capability with all of our own in-house operators to actually commission the facility to start it up and to operate it ourselves.

We're the only company that did all of those things, and that was what was really exciting about this experience. was we were able to do all of that internally. And now we have the blueprints to go to the next to do it again and again, and we know what it takes to do that, right, because we've done it now. And the delta between what we do here versus the next 1 is relatively small because it's just incorporating lessons learned. And that's a huge, huge, huge advantage for us now that we can say and sort of stand up and say, okay, we as a company have now designed and built and commissioned and turned on full-scale reactor that now we can repeat, right, again and again and again, and then carry those lessons over into the things that are not as directly the same, so things like Aurora on the power side.

Same thing with commissioning and setting up nuclear facilities that have complexity to them like fuel fabrication and recycling. So we're proving out execution and executing at scale and iterating at scale, which has always been an important thing for us to move quickly. So we're very excited about that. Very proud of the team for how -- what it took to get here, especially over the last few days. I'm really excited we were able to celebrate that, and now we're eager to move on to what's next. So thank you all for joining us today. And I appreciate the time.

This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us, and welcome to Oklo First Quarter 2026 Financial Results and Webcast.

[Operator Instructions]

I will now hand the conference over to Sam Doane. Senior Director of Investor Relations. Sam, please go ahead.

Thank you, operator, and good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Oklo's First Quarter 2026 Earnings and Company Update Call. I'm Sam Doane, Oklo's Senior Director of Investor Relations. Joining me today are Jake Dewitte, Oklo's Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer; and Craig Bealmear, our Chief Financial Officer.

Today's accompanying slide presentation is available on the Investor Relations section of our website. After my opening remarks and the forward-looking statement disclosure, Jake will walk through our business update and strategic progress, and Craig will cover our financial results and closing remarks.

I'd like to remind everyone that today's discussion, including our prepared remarks and the Q&A session that follows, will include forward-looking statements. These statements reflect our current views regarding trends, assumptions, risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed today. We encourage you to review the forward-looking statements disclaimer included in our supplemental slides. Additional information on relevant risk factors can also be found in our most recent filings with the SEC. Please note that Oklo assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.

With that, I'll now turn the call over to Jake.

Thank you, Sam, and thank you, everyone, for joining us today. Before we get into the quarter, I want to step back briefly. It has been almost exactly 2 years since Oklo became a public company. And since that time, there has been incredible progress at Oklo and for the industry as a whole. For Oklo, the story has increasingly moved from strategy to execution.

Since becoming a public company, we have built a customer pipeline across data centers, industrials, energy and government customers. We have advanced major customer relationships, including Switch and Meta. We broke ground on our first Aurora powerhouse at Idaho National Laboratory, Advanced Site work Procurement and Department of Energy Authorization for Aurora-INL and continue to make progress with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, including approval of our Principal Design Criteria topical report.

We also advanced Aurora-Ohio, including plans with Meta for a 1.2 gigawatt power campus, while continuing to expand the fuel infrastructure needed to support deployment. This includes progress on the Aurora Fuel Fabrication Facility at INL, the Tennessee Advanced Fuel Center and our fast-spectrum plutonium criticality experiments.

On the isotope side, we acquired Atomic Alchemy, built the Groves test reactor facility in 229 days, and we are developing our first isotope customer contracts for offtake from the radiochemistry laboratory. And importantly, we strengthened the balance sheet to support deployment and long-term growth. Oklo's no longer just preparing for deployment. We are actively building the platform to support it.

The broader environment continues to move in a direction that is providing tremendous momentum and supports our strategy. We are seeing U.S. nuclear tailwind shift from policy endorsement to execution, which manifests across power markets, fuel recycling and now into space travel and exploration.

The White House launched the National Initiative for American Space Nuclear Power and the DOE has been directed to assess readiness for up to 4 space reactors within 5 years. That is a very strong signal that nuclear is increasingly being viewed as strategic infrastructure beyond the grid, beyond this planet and beyond the century.

Our business touches several of the world's expanding needs. Almost every incredible thing we have done in space has been powered by isotopes, and that will most likely continue to be true, which means isotope production, fuel development, compact reactors and materials testing are all relevant markets. And even before permanent space reactors are deployed, our isotope business can support space applications through radioisotope materials for systems like radioisotope thermoelectric generators, which are used to provide reliable power in extreme environments.

At the same time, PJM continues to highlight the need for new firm supply, including bridging a potential 50- to 60-gigawatt capacity shortfall over the next decade in a proposed reliability backstop procurement framework. That supports our view that co-located and campus-style deployment models can be an important part of serving large loads and also underscores why we are progressing deployment of power assets in power park-type like locations, such as those we are developing in Southern Ohio. Demand continues to build for reliable baseload power.

And on the fuel side, the DOE has issued requests for applications to advance privately funded used nuclear fuel recycling, while states are increasingly competing to host integrated nuclear campuses that can support clean, reliable and affordable energy at scale. Together, these developments reinforce the idea that used fuel should be viewed not as a liability, but as a strategic domestic energy resource.

We are also seeing ongoing innovation at the NRC to expand the licensing pathways available to small advanced reactors, which helps accelerate deployment. Part 57 is designed around faster repeatable deployment of microreactors and smaller advanced reactors. The NRC has discussed targeted licensing and deployment timelines of 6 to 12 months. That is a very different cadence from traditional nuclear licensing frameworks we were discussing just a few years ago.

Part 57 also proposes fleet-based licensing and more standardized reviews for smaller repeatable reactors, which could significantly streamline future licensing for projects with multiple same kind assets, aligning with Oklo's repeatable deployment multiple powerhouse campus-style development approach.

Part 57 also appears to leverage DOE and Department of War authorized operating experience to reduce duplicative NRC reviews. That is important because our initial deployments of DOE authorized assets will generate real engineering, construction, safety and operating experience. And that experience may inform and streamline future NRC reviews, enhancing the strategic value of those early asset deployments.

The NRC has also finalized Part 53, an important modernization step because it creates a risk-informed technology-inclusive framework for advanced reactors though the development of the proposed Part 57 may be even more directly relevant and beneficial for Oklo.

NRC modernization is moving in a direction that appears highly aligned with Oklo's targeted fleet deployment model of advanced reactors with repeatable designs. 2 years ago, the advanced nuclear conversation was still largely about policy support, customer interest and long-term potential. Today, the conversation at Oklo is increasingly about execution. We are advancing licensing pathways across 3 businesses, securing multiple fuel pathways, converting demand into deployable, repeatable projects and deploying and operating assets to meet that demand.

We believe that Oklo is well positioned to meet market demand as an integrated platform across 3 business units, power, fuel and isotopes. Power as the anchor product, clean, reliable baseload power and heat delivered through our Aurora powerhouses. Fuel is the enabler, fabrication, recycling and multiple fuel supply pathways that support deployment. And isotopes that expand the platform into high-value domestic market sectors that will supply products for critical uses, including space, defense, industrial and most importantly, health care.

These are complementary businesses with capabilities designed to reinforce each other over time. That integration is central to how we believe Oklo can scale. And we are in action, building assets across all 3 of our business verticals as we speak. On the power side, we have Aurora-INL, our Aurora powerhouse at Idaho National Laboratory. Aurora-Ohio, our planned 1.2 gigawatt clean energy campus and Aurora Eielson, a cogeneration project planned to provide heat and power for Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska.

On the fuel side, we have the Aurora fuel fabrication facility at INL and the Advanced Fuel Center in Tennessee, which begins with our first phase, a used nuclear fuel recycling facility. We are also developing plans for the potential use of plutonium-based fuels as a bridge fuel. And in isotopes, we have Groves, our radioisotope test reactor, which is targeting criticality by July 4 of this year. and the Idaho radiochemistry laboratory, which already has NRC license and is working towards generating early commercial isotope revenue starting in 2026.

We are actively executing across all 3 business units of our vertically integrated nuclear platform, building the infrastructure, fuel pathways, licensing strategies, supply chain strategies and commercial capabilities needed to deploy repeatedly.

We used this slide last quarter, but it is worth revisiting briefly because it is a helpful reminder, of how the pieces fit together, in the conventional nuclear value chain, mining, enrichment, power generation and long-term waste storage are fragmented across different parties.

Oklo's model is designed to connect fuel fabrication, power production, fuel recycling and isotope production into an integrated loop. Power creates fuel demand, recycling supports long-term supply, recovered materials can support isotope opportunities. So this is a quick reminder, but an important one, power, fuel and isotopes are all synergistic capabilities, not separate strategic directions. We believe Oklo is the key player in the nuclear sector advancing the strategic integrated business model.

Since our last company update just 8 weeks ago, we've continued to make progress across all 3 business units. In Power, Aurora-INL has submitted the Preliminary Documented Safety Analysis or PDSA, for review with the Department of Energy. Advanced Procurement and site development and received approval from the NRC for our principal design criteria topical report.

Aurora-Ohio has moved forward with PJM interconnection applications. For Aurora-Eielson site characterization has been initiated. And with Project Pluto, we announced a strategic partnership project with Battelle Energy Alliance and Idaho National Laboratory for an industry-leading initiative to integrate AI into reactor and fuel system design.

In Fuel, early construction activities at A3F are underway and final design deliverables are complete. The Tennessee fuel recycling facility continues through application readiness review with the NRC and site preparation continues.

We also announced a collaboration with NVIDIA in Los Alamos National Laboratory to support fuel validation work for plutonium bearing fuels. And in isotopes, Groves has its PDSA and review has its DSA submitted and received a certificate of substantial completion for construction. The Idaho Radiochemistry Laboratory is also advancing our first customer contract, paving the way for potential revenue generation in 2026. Across the company, our mindset has shifted toward asset deployment, which is supporting asset delivery across all 3 business units, enabled by multiple regulatory pathways and unlocking several growing potential revenue opportunities.

First, we'll start with the fuel business updates. Fuel availability is one of the most important gating items for advanced nuclear deployment and is one of the areas where Oklo has spent years building differentiated capabilities and optionality.

A3F is the Aurora Fuel Fabrication Facility at INL, which will be fabricating fuel for the Aurora-INL and supporting future Aurora deployments. On the DOE authorization side, A3F has received approval for its Nuclear Safety Design Agreement or NSDA and its Preliminary Documented Safety Analysis or PDSA. The next milestones are approval of the Documented Safety Analysis or DSA, completion of the readiness review and start-up approval.

On execution, early construction activities are complete. Final design deliverables are complete, and the next major execution milestone is expected to be the construction contract award.

The Tennessee Advanced Fuel Center is our first major step toward long-term recycling capability. Site preparation activities continue in Tennessee. Technology development continues to mature the design, and the NRC application readiness review continues. As of April 2026, the Department of Energy has initiated an accelerated private sector-led pathway for nuclear fuel recycling, moving away from the once-through cycle toward reprocessing for advanced reactors. We will continue to evaluate the right pathway as the project advances.

We also announced the collaboration with NVIDIA and Los Alamos National Laboratory to advance nuclear fuel validation. We see this collaboration as a potential key strategic enabler because it brings together Oklo's fast reactor platform, NVIDIA's AI infrastructure and Los Alamos' fuel and materials expertise.

The collaboration supports AI-enabled modeling, digital twins and validation work for plutonium bearing fuels. It also advances fuel development for Pluto, one of our DOE reactor pilot program projects. The broader significance is that AI can help accelerate nuclear development, while nuclear can provide firm power for AI infrastructure. In this case, the collaboration links Advanced Nuclear Power, AI-enabled research and nuclear fuel R&D, and it supports the technical foundation for plutonium-bearing fuel work. It is another example of how our power and fuel strategies are connected to some of the most important infrastructure needs in the market today.

Moving now to power asset updates. Aurora-INL remains the anchor of our power deployment strategy, and we are advancing regulatory procurement and site work in parallel.

On the DOE side, we have executed the Other Transaction Agreement or OTA, and received approval for the nuclear safety design agreement. The preliminary documented safety analysis is currently in review, and the next milestones are approval of the documented safety analysis, completion of the readiness review and start-up approval.

The DOE pathway allows us to continue advancing construction, procurement and system integration, while the project moves through authorization. At the same time, and as we have noted in previous updates, we continue to work with the NRC in parallel as demonstrated by the NRC's approval of the principal design criteria topical report for the Aurora INL.

This approval is important because it establishes the fundamental safety, reliability and performance requirements that can guide future reactor licensing and design activities. It also clears the path for the report to be referenced in future applications, reducing the need to rereview established material. To be clear, that is the point of parallel pathing our regulatory approach. We are using the DOE pathway to move the first asset forward, while continuing NRC work that supports broader commercial licensing and future repeatability.

On the site, field execution continues at INL, including the transition to deep foundation excavation, long lead procurement work is advancing across major systems and supplier engagement is progressing for the reactor module and the balance of plant needs.

We also announced a strategic partnership project with Patel Energy Alliance, the management and operating contractor for INL to use AI technologies to accelerate advanced reactor and fuel system design work. The project will apply INL's Prometheus AI platform to support AI-enabled engineering workflows, modeling, simulation and technical documentation, including work related to Pluto, which is a plutonium-fueled powerhouse. Together, the regulatory progress, site execution and AI-enabled design work are all aimed at accelerating deployment, while improving engineering efficiency.

At Aurora-Ohio, we continue to advance campus development and permitting readiness. Meta and Oklo announced plans earlier this year to develop a 1.2-gigawatt advanced nuclear power campus in Ohio. And this quarter, Oklo submitted PJM interconnection applications as part of the most recent cluster study, which is key to overall site development and project deployment timelines.

We are continuing to look for avenues to enhance site differentiators as we advance the Ohio campus and broader development strategy. We also continue coordination with regulatory bodies to support permitting, site readiness and project scope alignment, while advancing engagement across community, policy and commercial stakeholders in Ohio.

Aurora-Eielson represents a different but highly strategic power use case. The Defense Logistics Agency Energy on behalf of the Department of the Air Force issued an notice of intent to award to Oklo. The project is an Aurora-derived powerhouse planned for Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska. Site characterization is ongoing with ground investigations expected to begin this summer.

The project is planned to deliver and meet or at least 5 megawatts of electric power with the primary use case for the asset being the delivery of steam for district heating, integrating with existing base energy infrastructure. Strategically, this demonstrates distributed nuclear for mission-critical defense operations. It is not only about electricity. It is also about heat, resilience and energy security in a demanding operating environment. It expands Aurora applications beyond commercial campuses and supports the broader case for resilient nuclear power.

The last asset updates are on our isotope projects. This business continues to move from development toward near-term operations and commercial activity. This quarter, we completed construction activities for the Groves facility, receiving a certificate of substantial completion for construction for this greenfield facility in just 229 days. That timing matters and is foundational to our strategy.

Nuclear is often viewed as slow by default. Groves demonstrates that with the right design, scope, supply chain authorization pathway and commercial mindset, nuclear assets can move much faster than people may expect, and they implications go beyond groves itself. The lessons we are learning around procurement, construction, installation, regulatory sequencing and commissioning will inform how we deploy future nuclear assets across the platform.

On the DOE authorization side, Groves has executed its OTA and received approval for its NSDA. The PDSA is in review and the DSA has been submitted. The next milestones are completion of the readiness review and start-up approval. From an execution standpoint, the focus now is in final installation of reactor equipment, integrated system testing and fuel delivery with the target of July 4, 2026, criticality. We are pleased with the pace of progress, and Groves is helping show what a faster model for nuclear asset deployment can look like.

The second isotope update is the Idaho radiochemistry Laboratory. This is an NRC authorized facility. Oklo received its NRC material handling permit earlier this year, which enables the processing and handling of licensed radioactive materials and supports early commercial isotope activities. This facility gives us the ability to safely process, handle and supply purified isotope materials under the appropriate regulatory framework, allowing us to engage on commercial offtake opportunities.

On the commercial side, customer engagement continues to advance, and our first commercial isotope contract is pending. We are not naming the customer at this stage, but this represents continued movement toward early commercialization of Oklo's isotope platform. The broader read-through is that we are building the pieces required for commercial isotope supply, authorized isotope handling capabilities, purified isotope processing and commercial supply opportunities. This is the path this lab is intended to support.

Before turning it over to Craig, I want to briefly highlight our Board of Directors. As Oklo moves from development into execution across multiple assets, we continue to build the Board with experience aligned to the scale and complexity of what we are doing. Michael Thompson now serves as our Lead Independent Director. We also added Dr. Mark Peters, David Christian, Derek Kan and David Park as new directors.

These additions bring deep experience, executing complex and highly technical projects across energy, industrial, infrastructure, finance and technology sectors. That breadth matters. We are building a vertically integrated business across fuel, power and isotopes each has significant tailwinds, but each also has distinct execution needs. Adding this type of experience supports our ability to move faster and do more simultaneously as the company scales.

With that, I will turn it over to Craig for the financial update and closing remarks. Craig?

Thanks, Jake. 2026 has started off strong for the company as we added both strength to our balance sheet and deployment of capital to advance our strategic agenda. In the first quarter, Oklo's net loss was $33.1 million made up of loss from operations of $51.2 million and income tax expense of $3.2 million, offset by $21.3 million of net interest and dividend income.

Our cash used in operating activities in the first quarter of $17.9 million includes our net loss of $33.1 million, primarily adjusted for noncash charges of $15.6 million from stock-based compensation as well as $0.4 million of other adjustments.

Cash used in investing activities was $359 million, including net cash used for purchases of marketable securities of $321.2 million following the closure of our successful ATM program in the first quarter. In addition, capital spend of $32.8 million increased planned property, plant and equipment growth across all 3 business units. Other investment activity during the period was $5 million.

We are trending toward our guided ranges we provided for 2026. Cash used in operating activities of $80 million to $100 million as well as cash used in investing activities for the deployment of property, plant and equipment of $350 million to $450 million, demonstrating Oklo's deployment efforts across our 3 business units of power, fuel and isotopes.

As we focus on accelerating procurement and construction efforts through the year, we expect to continue to make progress aligned towards these targets. Oklo ended the first quarter with cash and marketable securities of $2.5 billion, comprising cash and cash equivalents of $1.6 billion and marketable securities of $0.9 billion. This balance includes the additional $1.2 billion of capital generated in the first quarter from the completion of our ATM program. While also generating sizable interest income, this financing provides Oklo with a strong balance sheet, which leaves the company well positioned to benefit from ongoing policy and regulatory tailwinds and to execute on our business plans in 2026 and beyond.

Before we move to questions and answers, I'll briefly summarize the why Oklo investment case. We believe Oklo is differentiated by the combination of advanced nuclear power, fuel and fuel recycling, isotopes and a vertically-integrated business model. Our Power business addresses growing demand for clean, reliable, always on energy. Our fuel strategy is designed to support deployment, while reducing reliance on any single fuel pathway. And our isotope business adds high-value opportunities that are complementary to the broader platform.

We are also pursuing licensing pathways that fit the asset and stage of development, while early DOE authorized assets helping inform future NRC license deployments. Finally, our potential customer pipeline reflects strong demand across data centers, utilities, industrials, oil and gas and government applications. Together, these elements support our view that Oklo is building a scalable nuclear platform with multiple paths to value creation.

With that, thank you again for joining us. We will now open up the call for questions.

[Operator Instructions]

Your first question comes from the line of Ryan Pfingst with B. Riley Securities.

Maybe I'll start with Fuel. You secured supply needed for Aurora-INL and the recycling opportunity looks promising. But curious if you have an update on your fuel procurement strategy for mid-term opportunities like the Ohio plants with Meta and what you're seeing from enrichment companies out there and your ability to source fuel from them.

I'll start it and then, Craig, chime in. I think, appreciate that. Basically, what we see happening in the space is a number of things evolving. We're actively working with enrichers. Obviously, we have a long time partnership with Centrus. We continue to dig in with the enrichment companies to shape the right format and try to figure out the best ways to accelerate their ability to meet supply, which we feel increasingly encouraged by. We're seeing time scales and delivery schedule shift to the left, for the first time. That's pretty amazing. I think just given the activity in the space helps for that.

Similarly, we're seeing a significant uptick in different opportunities emerge on the government side for making extra excess materials available, and those are in the form of either basically high-risk uranium that can be recovered and down blended to make High-Assay Low-Enriched Uranium or plutonium inventories or stockpile surplus plutonium that can be used blended with uranium and made as to a fuel that's equivalent to HALEU fuel.

The good news about those is those are all materials that can exist with very little spin-up time or I should say, sort of production time compared to setting up enrichment capacity. And that's something we've long been pushing forward and excited to sort of see and see happen because it enables a significant amount of what I think of as a bridge fuel to come to market sooner. So for the Ohio plants, it's in all sort of hands-on-deck approach, working from the fresh fuel perspective as well as looking at other sources from the government to help get those plants started, with the idea that they transitioned to refueling with sort of commercial HALEU supplies. Until recycling comes online, it makes sense to use in those areas as well.

And that's a key differentiator for us, right? We have intentionally selected a reactor technology and an integrated sort of strategy approach that allows us to source fuel from fresh HALEU sources from government reserves that includes uranium and plutonium that can be produced into fuel that can be fueled our -- fuel our reactors as well as recycling, which can produce fuel form that can be used in our reactors. And you can't do that across all reactor types. It's really unique to fast reactors in many ways, and that's something that we've been building the infrastructure for really since the beginning.

And Jake, I think the only thing I would add is in addition to things that are underway around the government helping on the supply side, it's early days, but it also feels like there's help being provided on the capital side as well. And just to emphasize Jake's point, we think having more than one pathway in the near term as that bridge to recycling in the longer term is just, it makes a lot of strategic sense, which is why we're progressing more than one avenue.

Your next question comes from the line of Jed Dorsheimer with William Blair.

Jake, can you just talk about some of the challenges and maybe the timing of going from uranium to plutonium in your Pluto reactor? And then also, the advantages that, that may provide.

Sure. Thank you, Jed, and thanks for the question. I think that's one of the key things here, with the fast reactor system like ours, you can use plutonium as a fuel source. And the way that works is you take the plutonium that exists, and this is all surplus plutonium that the government produced largely as part of the weapons program in the past. It's been deemed surplus by various activities, not really suitable for use in that program and was slated for disposition, well, the best way to dispose of it is to put it in reactors and split it, which is what we're intending to do.

And plutonium is a really good surrogate as a fuel form compared to, for example, Uranium 235, which is the main fissile isotope in uranium that you enrich the concentrate. So what that means is plutonium exists in a concentrated form today, it's being made available through a program that the government had request for applications for as moved forward by the executive order back in May. What that would do is pull that plutonium, enable it to basically be used as a fuel form for reactors like ours. And how that works is you take it, you mix it with uranium and zirconium to cast a metallic fuel form.

That fuel and technical jargon has been deemed or called or referred to as ternary alloy fuel. The long history of research and development in the fast reactor research and development programs in the United States and abroad. It has a deep history to its use in sort of a long supporting qualification base for that.

So long story short, we can use that plutonium as a fuel source to, instead of HALEU, which is particularly useful because that material exists and is more readily fabricatable than standing up and spinning up the larger scale HALEU supply chains in the near term. Over time, obviously, that takes over.

But that plutonium it's a finite reserve, right? It's a limited amount of material that we'll use to get started, so we'll build reactors that will start on it, and we'll gradually replace it and refuel it with either High-Assay Low-Enriched Uranium, HALEU, that's produced or the fuel produced from recycling, which is a different type. It has all the transuranics mix together with uranium and everything else. Either way, it's a really important way to produce a lot of fuel.

That 20 tons that the government's request for applications is making available in this first tranche of plutonium is equivalent between 160 to 200 tons of HALEU. That's a huge amount of fuel to get started and help sort of create this bridge that can move a lot more reactors out the door more quickly.

In terms of challenges, there are some challenges with it, but they're manageable from the sense that we've used this, before, in fast reactors. We know how to manage its usage, and it's a great fuel source. So it's one of those things that from a handling perspective and from other pieces, you managed to do that a little bit differently, but it's something, again, there's a long history base of in the United States, and we know how to deal with. It's just an incredibly powerful resource to kick start building more reactors more quickly.

Your next question comes from the line of Brian Lee with Goldman Sachs.

I just wanted to go back to one of the slides. This Part 57 overview was helpful. Jake, can you maybe frame for us kind of expectations around timing for that? And then it does sound like maybe as part of that the DOE to NRC licensing conversion could be facilitated. Is that the right read? Or kind of how should we think about this in the context of transitioning to NRC licenses from the DOE authorization?

Yes. It's a great question. I think the general view -- just to clarify, I'll make it very clear, from how the framework for converting from DOE to NRC authorization has been mapped out and planned is accommodating through a number of licensing pathways in the NRC, if that makes sense. Like at the end of the day, the focus is going to be on how do you best transition an operating asset to an operating reactor. And that process will be developed, but it can fit into a number of different frameworks, 57 being one of them.

The way we see Part 57 is a culmination of a lot of work of regulatory engagement to drive the NRC to a more, I would say, performance-based regulatory platform and foundation. It's something that is kind of the fruits of labor spanning back over a decade, which is great to see. What I mean by that is not just the fruits of the Oklo labor, I mean the fruits of the labor of the whole industry and the NRC and the government to come up with a better framework that is focused on recognizing the actual sort of hazard and consequence profile of reactors and not laying over massive prescriptive overlays, which is pretty significant and sort of, I would say, streamlining and focusing the regulations on what matter.

57's timeline for implementation is something that I know is going through a period of, as I understand it, public comment period. I don't know the exact details on when that's going to be expected to be rolled out, but based on the timelines that the NRC has put all of that forward, I think they're expecting that to be ready, to be usable here as soon as later this year. It's possible that there may be some reasons that, that moves a little, but I think that's the intent. And I think that's the general timeline target. And so I think that's pretty powerfully important.

So it's a great platform that our reactors can be sorted into. We're generally quite excited about it. There's obviously an iterative dynamic that needs to be accommodated. It's going to be great, but I'm sure there will be ways to make it even better. And that's something that we're going to be eagerly engaged on.

But again, I think what's really important is, this is a massive step forward based on what had been looked at in the past and discussed for a long time and to see it more or less codified like this is incredibly encouraging for us at Oklo, in particular. Given the amount of time we've sort of taken the amount of work we've put in to really try to modernize regulations going back since our founding and seeing some of those concepts and ideas sort of come to light like this is pretty exciting.

So I think it's a great platform that we'll tend to use most likely for most of our plants going forward and most likely to convert the Aurora-INL. Of course, depends on a number of the final details that come to bear, but we're pretty excited about it.

And Jake, I'm not the engineer in the firm, but what really excites me about it is it almost feels like it really aligns with the strategy we've always had. Jake talked in his speaking points about fleet-based licensing. We've always had the plan to deploy a fleet of assets. We've always talked about our safety profile and our passive safety characteristics with low consequences. And Part 57 is really an enabler for that sort of design.

And I think the other thing that maybe excites me from an efficiency standpoint is it is trying to take unnecessary steps that have already been done in one process and leverage that. So I think there's just a lot of really positive things to take away for our powerhouse business as it relates to Part 57.

I'm sorry. I was just -- yes, I was just going to add. I'm so sorry, I'll just tie onto that. I think Craig hit this, and I think one of the things that's just very valuable about 57 is it is a culmination of a lot of work done dating back that spans things we were putting forward in our pre-application activity starting in 2016, work that the industry was working on from a few years after that, kind of onwards. It's very -- again, it's very encouraging. And I think it's exciting to see it come to bear like this because I think it's going to be quite transformative.

Your next question comes from the line of Sherif Elmaghrabi with BTIG.

For the PJM interconnection request, do you have a sense for the turnaround time on that? And does approval come irrespective of where you are in the NRC regulatory process?

I don't have the best answer for the timeline on the interconnection request time scales. I don't know, Craig, if you do. I think the way...

Yes, I would say, Jake, it's measured in months, if not more than a year. And my understanding is that it's somewhat disconnected from our regulatory process.

Yes. And on that part definitely disconnected from the nuclear regulatory part.

So we think what we've done around PJM, it's really an important action just to make sure that we're thinking about the interconnection relative to all of our other critical path items as it relates to Aurora-Ohio.

Your next question comes from the line of Jeffrey Campbell with Seaport Research Partners.

Jake, I just wanted to understand what's the -- regarding the strategic partnership project with Battelle to integrate the AI? And you also have one with NVIDIA at LANL. Could you sort of synopsize what the goals of each program are, how they differ if there's any synergies?

Yes. They're complementary, a bit different, but they focus on bringing forward some of the state of the art modeling and computational capabilities from -- frankly, from an AI-driven kind of workflow and Agentic workflow perspective to support our reactor design and development work, so we're putting it to work on our Pluto reactor, which is a plutonium-dual variant and is quite accelerating. So the NVIDIA LANL is a great setup, most almost as kind of the premier plutonium laboratory NVIDIA is working with us and them to help bring forward some state of the art capabilities on various aspects around plutonium chemistry and material handling and management. That's going to be very, I think, constructive and moving certain process and basically certain processes and technology considerations forward.

So I'm pretty excited about that. It's going to also help us streamline how -- and accelerate how we can manage some of the plutonium, I would say, material, I guess, frankly, like it's really the processing out from some of the stuff that might be coming in, in an oxide form or different forms that need some purification around it, just given Los Alamos' experience there and NVIDIA's capabilities and our capabilities. It's just a great way to work together to actually apply some of these, frankly, like, phenomenal compute capabilities to get insights and accelerate sort of the technology development process and some of the shortcut, not shortcut but accelerate the trial and error considerations there, which is huge, in terms of time savings and increasing throughput and forming sort of design of material handling that allows us to get deeper into that inventory or some of that surplus in plutonium and be able to turn it into fuel more quickly.

There's a lot more to unpack there for time's sake. I'll kind of leave it at that and then move over to the INL one, which is a focus on us partnering with them to use some incredible capabilities they've built around Agentic AI workflows for reactor design and analysis all the way out through aspects of licensing and manufacturing and construction.

What that is, is effectively, it's like using their tools to create effectively reactor design teams that are -- AI reaction design teams to help us do more with less because all of the exciting things we have going on, finding ways that are significant levers for our engineering team to do more with less is going to help us take advantage of all of these opportunities that are in front of us.

And partnering with INL has been kind of the home of this suite of reactor design and modeling tools and being able to tie that into some of the really cool stuff they've been working on for a bit on driving AI, frankly, Agentic designers is hugely enabling. Because when you think about reactor design, a lot of work turns into doing kind of multi-physics optimization. And now you can put all that in a single place and get a ton of information out really quickly by just firing it off and letting it run for a long time, which helps us define, explore and then iterate down on and optimize towards the design space is much more quickly and also gain a lot of insights in the process accordingly to reduce the design space accordingly and make it even basically faster the next time.

So we're kind of at, I guess, for the Vanguard of doing this with INL, we've been working with them for a few months on setting this up to see what could we do and what could be possible and very excited about that. So basically, it's going to be applying their reactor design and analysis tools and things we built together and tying that in from an Agentic AI kind of reactor design workflow or team, if you will. That now allows us to apply that into the Pluto program to accelerate the design work there for what we can do on the reactor front there.

We also expect that to span out to other design efforts, but that's the one where it was kind of the easiest natural tie-in to start. But I think it's going to be really helpful in us doing more and more quickly, frankly, with less because that's really important.

And Jake, what excites me is further down the road when we have a fleet of assets running on more than one fuel, I can see a world where we're trying to optimize minimum amount of fuel in for maximum amount of power for longest duration between refuelings. So building out this sort of capability now, I think, is just going to have further applications on down the road.

Your next question comes from the line of Sameer Joshi with H.C. Wainwright.

The Eielson Air Force Base cogen facility is 15 megawatts. That's a different model than your 75-megawatt standard, how does that development differ or is similar to what you're doing with the 75 megawatt? And is there a Department of War or Department of Defense pathway as well for this?

Yes, it's a great question. It builds off the experience from the, basically, what we've done from the past, if you go back to like our earlier design iterations, some of the Aurora when we were smaller, it basically picks up on those and as it carryover into the Pluto project -- which was carried into the Pluto project, which didn't carry over into the Aurora side.

Given the size of that, it's less -- it's more about the thermal power output, especially given the steam needs rather than the electric side. This is less of a comparison on electric power more on thermal power. So it's a 60-megawatt thermal power plant that will be designed to go up there. And we see that being a pretty important piece that naturally fits off of our kind of product road map and evolution because they have a lot of common carryover. There are some differences, of course, between the Aurora product line that's focused on the sort of 35-megawatt plus data center side and then this, but this has been core to some opportunities we see in defense and the other industrial applications and ties over pretty constructively there.

It uses the same fuel form and size and dimensions actually, just a bit less and then a bit of a smaller vessel with smaller sort of plant footprint because it's smaller, smaller piping and small heat exchangers, but all the same technology pieces. And in many cases, we expect the same vendors, which generally speaking, I think, is helpful. And again, the strategic aspects of the Defense Department's needs or sorry, Department of War's needs are pretty important to be able to match into and this gives us that flexibility.

The other piece that I think is important from that is, again, it shows the opportunity around the cogeneration side. Going back, I remember in my academic days and Caroline's academic days, there's a lot of excitement around high temperature reactors to produce process heat. But when you really dig into the market, the vast, vast, vast majority of the market is going to be served by steam temperature is under 450 degrees centigrade. And then the other big, like sort of the other big -- then there's kind of a moat of application of temperatures above that until you get to very, very, very high temperatures is that make no sense to heat like to transport it. So you're going to use other things, either combustion or hydrogen or electrified transport because moving a couple -- like 1,500-plus degrees centigrade heat is just really hard and really expensive and designing reactor to do so is also the same.

So it's kind of cool because it allows us to tie in with more moderate temperature reactor system. And the benefits that, that affords us with them being able to serve these kind of process heat applications, which are a massive opportunity, especially since again, such a huge percentage of processed heat energy usage is met by sub-450-degree steam. And this is a great example of what that looks like.

Now for a lot of those like facilities and plants, though, this size range plant is very -- is ideal. So it's why we've designed it like that and built it from that. It also has benefits from different authorization and regulatory pathways, potentially. However, given the Part 57 dynamic that's come out, it's most likely -- very likely that we'll go that path with this there, given that it has significant benefits and that's been the Air Force's inclinations. But it's important to also note that we are also part of the Defense Innovation Unit, Advanced Nuclear Power Program, the ANPI program. And that has some cool upside capabilities and benefits for us as well that may tie over to some of these DOE, DOW regulatory pathways. But at this point, the intent and plan for Eielson would stick with Part 57, but future Defense or Department of War applications might go a different regulatory pathway, depending on the structure there.

This is very much a pathfinder. It's been clearly communicated that way by the Air Force by a lot of the stakeholders. It's our view, too, and it's a great place to figure it out.

[Operator Instructions]

Your next question comes from the line of Derek Soderberg with Cantor Fitzgerald.

Yes. I'm hopping around calls tonight, so apologies if the question has been asked. I want to start with some commentary from the Nuclear Energy Institute. It sounds like they're considering a plan to potentially finance billions of dollars of long lead time items for nuclear reactors. I was wondering if you can comment on that. And what might be the implications on your CapEx assumptions, deployment timelines if that indeed happens?

I mean I can take this one. So Derek, it's early days for those sorts of conversations, but we've talked about we've been very active clearly in the capital markets to make sure that capital is not a constraint for our asset deployment timeline. And we are looking now to explore government financing options and asset-level financing options if the terms and other things makes sense and that could even include supplier financing. But it's good that we're looking at those sorts of things. Just as you said, can that help lower our cost of capital? Can that help accelerate deployment as opposed to something that we absolutely need to have to progress our strategic agenda?

There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back to Jake Dewitte, CEO of Oklo for closing remarks.

Great. Thank you, and thank you all for jumping in. We're excited to share these updates. I know it's only been about 8 weeks since our last one, but it has been a pretty dynamic period, including just in the last few weeks, the release of Part 57, couple that with the strategic advancements we've been focused on working with our partners in the National Lab Ecosystem as well as across sort of the, I would call it, the AI space.

And on top of that, we continue to see this broad mix of significant opportunities and tailwinds come together, to be quite supportive for solving through some of the biggest bottlenecks, right? Regulatory is one of the biggest ones that obviously has been focused on, and there's a ton of tremendous work there.

Again, the opportunity space around how we can convert with DOE authorization to an NRC license is a clear benefit and advantage because you can take the first build iteration cycles faster on the DOE authorization side and then have a path to bring it over in the right way to the NRC like license side, while also informing NRC licensing for future work. Again, we continue to ensure both of those, and we're taking both approaches.

And then on top of that, we're making steady progress on solving for fuel, which at this point has a multitude of potential pathways that get over and around the challenge of initial fuel loads. And we are uniquely positioned on purpose from a strategic perspective to be able to capitalize on that by using bridge fuel sources that come from different excess materials and inventories, while also working proactively and quickly with our long-term enrichment partners. So we're pretty excited about how that space is shaping up and how we're leaning into it and how we're positioned to take -- make the most out of diversity of fuel sources becoming available.

And finally, I think it's really important to highlight that it's an exciting place and time for us to be moving fully into build an execution in iteration mode. With the Groves reactor in Texas, we're differentiated in the sense that we've been able to build the reactor from the ground up on a thing that -- on a piece land that had nothing on it. And everything we put into it, it wasn't prefabricated or existing, already fabricated fuel the government had or components or building that existed or minimum kind of slab and tilts up. It was a full on civil construction build for a nuclear reactor with a vessel sourced and something that we -- in fuel sourced and all the components sourced in the supply chain that we needed or made, and we were able to do that and reach substantial completion in 229 days, something that, frankly, has been a bit impressive if it was just a normal building much less a nuclear reactor.

So we're really proud of the team for how we've done that. We're proving out that some of the key theses we've had that nuclear doesn't have to be incredibly big or incredibly slow and incredibly expensive. It can be done in radically different ways by taking the right business model approach, team and structure and solving to do that. And we've got some great experience points already.

So it's been very exciting [ journey ] for us to see that progress. We're very excited to then come back soon with even more exciting updates when we see you guys next in a few months. So thank you all for joining us, and appreciate the time.

This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.

Gentlemen, thank you for standing by. My name is Christa, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome you to the Oklo Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Financial Results and Business Update Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Thank you. I would now like to turn the conference over to Sam Doane, Senior Director of Investor Relations. Sam, please go ahead.

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining Oklo's Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Company Update. I'm Sam Doane, Oklo's Senior Director of Investor Relations. Joining me today are Jake Dewitte, Oklo's Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer; and Craig Bealmear, our Chief Financial Officer. After my opening remarks and the forward-looking statement disclosure, Jake will walk through the business update and strategic progress, and Craig will cover our financial results.

Our remarks today include forward-looking statements, which are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed today. We encourage you to review the forward-looking statements disclosure included in our supplemental slides. Additional information on relevant risk factors is described in our filings with the SEC. We undertake no obligation to update forward-looking statements, except as required by law.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Jake. Jake?

Thanks, Sam. 2025 was a step change year for Oklo. We transitioned from product development into active project deployment across all of our business units. During the year, we broke ground on our first Aurora powerhouse at Idaho National Laboratory under the DOE's reactor pilot program, advanced key commercial partnerships across the value chain, including our early 2026 prepayment agreement with Meta to support plans for 1.2 gigawatt power campus and began initial construction activities on A3F at INL. We also completed the acquisition of Atomic Alchemy and made substantial construction progress at Groves in Texas, our first radioisotope test reactor. In fuel, we completed fast-spectrum plutonium criticality experiments supporting using plutonium as a bridge fuel. We announced the first phase of our advanced fuel center in Tennessee, and we progressed licensing activities across multiple assets. Taken together, 2025 was the year Oklo turned our platform strategy into deployed projects while also strengthening the balance sheet to fund that execution and our long-term growth.

Before I go deeper into execution, it is also important to understand how much the external environment shifted over the last 2 years. In 2024 and 2025, U.S. nuclear policy moved toward a more execution-oriented posture across licensing, asset deployment, fuel supply and capital formation. You can see the 4 main pillars here. First, executive actions and regulatory direction focused on accelerating licensing and enabling first-of-a-kind projects. Second, federal support mechanisms, including tax credits, loan guarantees and direct financing tools are improving the pathway to fund projects. Third, fuel sovereignty measures are pushing domestic capability across the conversion, enrichment, HALEU and strategic fuel materials. And fourth, implementation of the ADVANCE Act is aimed at reducing friction and licensing and enabling more efficient deployment pathways. The policy backdrop has shifted from a light tailwind to a very strong tailwind for the nuclear sector, and Oklo is positioned to move in that environment.

Going forward, we will talk about Oklo through 3 integrated business units: power, fuel and isotopes that together form a unique vertically integrated nuclear platform. Power is the clean baseload power and heat from our sodium fast reactors that can utilize a broad spectrum of fuels. Fuel provides Oklo with an integrated pathway to produce fuel required for our powerhouses as well as for our peers and competitors. This derisks deployment, strengthens long-term supply and unlocks nuclear energy abundance at scale through fuel recycling. And isotopes expand the platform into high-value products and services with strategic domestic importance that are natural co-products from our other business units. The key point is that integration across the value chain is designed to unlock multiple complementary value streams over time.

And first is power. We are building the power business unit because demand for firm, reliable power is growing quickly across the country. From data centers to industrial customers to government applications, our customers need clean, dependable baseload power, not intermittent supply. Our Aurora powerhouses are expected to provide that kind of reliable baseload power, and our commercial model is built around long-term offtake agreements. Power is also foundational to the rest of our business platform. Power deployments create the demand that can scale our fuel production and fabrication capabilities over time and first deployments establish reference assets that improve repeatability for future campuses. Our experience building our power delivery capability has illuminated key opportunities in other parts of the ecosystem that we are leaning into building and scaling. So power is both a near-term customer solution and a foundation for broader platform scalability.

Fuel is the second business unit, and it is one of the most important strategic parts of what we are building. Fuel availability remains one of the most significant rate limiters for new nuclear deployment. From inception, we have been building fuel capabilities to support our own deployment and broader advanced nuclear deployment. That starts with fabrication for us. Fuel fabrication converts raw fuel material into reactor-ready fuel forms. It is how we support Oklo reactors while also creating the potential to provide services to third-party reactors over time, either through directly fabricating fuel for them or hosting their fabrication lines in our factories. Oklo is also exploring opportunities to develop modern deconversion processes to streamline efficiencies, including what we recently announced with Centrus. This step has traditionally occurred at the fuel fabrication facilities themselves. But as we look at the future of nuclear fuel manufacturing, it makes a lot more sense to locate this with the enrichment facility.

The second big part of our fuel strategy is recycling. Recycling can recover uranium for reuse, can recover and produce transuranic bearing material that can be used as fuel and advanced reactors. It can enable high-value isotope production, and it can provide used fuel management solutions through recycling pathways. So fuel is both a deployment enabler in the near term and a scalable fuel cycle business over the long term.

And the third business unit is isotopes. We are building this business because there are attractive high-value end markets across health care, industrial, space and defense applications because strategic domestic supply for many isotopes remains constrained. From life-saving therapies to the long-duration power supplies that have powered human space exploration to the future of remote monitoring and sensing for security purposes, isotopes are key material for humankind's future. We see those isotope opportunities as complementary to our power and fuel business units that can produce isotope co-products that the isotope business unit can then package and sell. At the same time, we are pursuing purpose-built production using reactors and facilities optimized for isotope production, and we see a services revenue opportunity through irradiation for advanced nuclear technology research and development, defense research and development, semiconductor doping and hardening and other applications. Taken together, isotopes expands the platform into high-value domestic supply for critical uses while strengthening the economics of the broader business.

This slide shows how the 3 business units connect. In the conventional nuclear value chain, mining, enrichment, power generation and long-term waste storage are fragmented across different parties. Our strategy is to build a more integrated platform that links power production, fuel fabrication, fuel recycling and isotope production. When you can fabricate fuel into reactor-ready forms and recycle materials over time, you move from a one-way fuel cycle into a repeatable loop. That improves long-term fuel optionality, supports supply resilience and can unlock additional products across the value chain. It also creates new value streams. Recovered materials can support radioisotope production, which connects directly into our isotope business. So the objective is not just to deploy powerhouses. It is to build an integrated platform where power is an anchor product, fuel is an enabling system and isotopes extend the platform into high-value products and services. And the U.S. is uniquely positioned for a strategy like ours.

The U.S. has generated roughly 20% of its electricity from nuclear power over the last 30-plus years, while producing a very small physical volume of used nuclear fuel. More than 90,000 metric tons of U.S. used nuclear fuel fits on a football field, about 10 meters high. That material is often described only as waste, but in reality, it contains enormous energy potential. The energy potential in U.S. used nuclear fuel is comparable in scale to the sum total of major global oil reserves. This is what makes recycling and reuse so strategically important. Used nuclear fuel is not just a liability to manage. It is also a major potential domestic energy resource if the infrastructure exists to put it back to work.

That sets up the next slide, which is about one of the mechanisms now emerging to help build that broader life cycle infrastructure. The U.S. already has a major strategic energy reserve in used nuclear fuel, but realizing more of that value over time depends on building the infrastructure, capabilities and coordination needed to put it to work. That is why the DOE's Nuclear Life Cycle Innovation Campus program is so important. DOE has framed this as a first step toward potential federal state partnerships to modernize the full nuclear fuel cycle using regional campus models that can co-locate key parts of the life cycle. As this model advances, it could reduce development friction, improve execution time lines and support more efficient investment across fuel, recycling, power and isotope-related infrastructure. As importantly, employing used nuclear fuel as a resource instead of treating it as a liability could change the power outlook for the U.S. over time, supporting advanced reactor fuel supply for generations, strengthening domestic radioisotope production and improving long-term used fuel management outcomes.

From our standpoint, this matters because it reflects a more integrated model for building nuclear infrastructure in the United States, which is closely aligned with the strategy we are executing across our business units. We continue to be very supportive of state responses to the RFI and have started working with multiple states as they evaluate potential campus proposals. These efforts form the foundations for ensuring energy affordability and reindustrializing the nation.

And this is where the strategy becomes tangible. Across power, fuel and isotopes, we are already building assets that support a more integrated nuclear development model to unlock nuclear energy abundance. On the power side, we have Aurora-INL, our first Aurora powerhouse at Idaho National Laboratory and Aurora Ohio, our planned clean energy campus in Pike County tied to our partnership with Meta. On the fuel side, we have A3F at INL, our first fuel fabrication facility and our advanced fuel center in Tennessee, which is our first phase of used nuclear fuel recycling infrastructure. And in isotopes, we are building Groves, our radioisotope test reactor in the Idaho Radiochemistry Laboratory, which supports isotope processing and scale up. So when we say vertically integrated, this is what we mean, multiple real assets now moving forward across all 3 business units.

Since our last company update, we have made meaningful progress across all aspects of the company. In power, Aurora-INL executed its DOE other transaction agreement under the reactor pilot program; received DOE approval of the nuclear safety design agreement; continued construction activities, including blasting and signed with Siemens Energy for the power conversion system. We also signed the Meta prepayment agreement in support of up to 1.2 gigawatts at Aurora, Ohio. In fuel, A3F received DOE approval of both the NSDA and the preliminary documented safety analysis, and it was selected under the DOE Advanced Nuclear Fuel Line pilot program. In recycling, we signed an agreement with TVA to explore fuel recycling, initiated site prework on our flagship recycling facility, completed NRC pre-application engagement, initiated a rolling NRC readiness review and were selected for DOE recycling R&D funding. We also completed a fast spectrum plutonium criticality experiment and announced a joint venture initiative with Centrus around deconversion. And in isotopes, Groves executed its DOE OTA, received NSDA approval, submitted its PDSA and continued construction toward a July 4 criticality target. Separately, the Idaho Radiochemistry Laboratory obtained its NRC materials license. So this is execution across multiple assets, multiple licensing pathways and multiple business units, all moving forward in parallel.

Aurora-INL is advancing on a DOE first authorization pathway. We have already executed the OTA under DOE's reactor pilot program and received approval of the nuclear safety design agreement. Those are important because the OTA formally brings the project into the DOE authorization pathway and the NSDA locks in the safety and regulatory framework for the project. The next DOE milestones are the preliminary documented safety analysis, the documented safety analysis and then the readiness review and start-up approval. Each of those steps progressively aligns DOE and Oklo on a safety basis from final design and construction through start-up and operations. The significance here is that the DOE pathway allows us to keep advancing construction, procurement and system integration activities in parallel as the project moves forward.

Alongside the authorization work, Aurora-INL is also advancing on execution and build readiness. On site development, we completed site characterization at INL. Site preparation is underway, including blasting, and construction activities are progressing in line with the project plan. On procurement and supply chain, we have received responses for the majority of identified long lead component requests for proposal, supplier down selection is underway, and all major equipment now has vendors under contract. That includes the Siemens Energy contract for the power conversion system, active supply chain agreements for reactor module components and active vendor contracts for all major refueling equipment. So Aurora-INL is moving forward on both the physical site side and the supply chain side, which is what we want to see at this stage of a first deployment, and we are learning a lot on the way.

Next is Aurora Ohio, where the key update is our agreement with Meta in support of a 1.2 gigawatt Aurora campus. The agreement advances plans for phase deployment with an initial phase of 150 megawatts targeted around 2030, and it is supported by prepayment for power structure designed to improve project certainty and support Phase 1 development. Importantly, Oklo expects to use funds from the prepayment agreement to support fuel procurement. We also own approximately 206 acres in Pike County, Ohio, which gives us a site to advance campus development in parallel with commercialization and permitting work. So this is an example of customer demand, commercial structure, site control and fuel planning, all starting to line up around a real deployment opportunity.

Fuel availability is one of the key gating items for advanced nuclear deployment. So our fuel strategy is deliberately built around flexibility, supply optionality and execution readiness. As this slide shows, we are addressing that through strategic enablers, fuel supply pathways and strategic fuel partnerships. On the enabler side, our fast reactor technology is designed to be versatile across a wide range of fuel sources, and our fabrication capabilities are intended to convert different feed supplies into reactor-ready fuel. Over time, recycling can turn used fuel into a more repeatable strategic fuel supply. Oklo is pursuing a differentiated strategy here to help accelerate deployment even in the face of conventional supply chain bottlenecks.

And on supply pathways, we are working with DOE managed materials, HALEU from conventional and advanced enrichment providers and recycled fuel supported through our own recycling and fabrication capabilities. And on partnerships, we are working with DOE, building relationships around enrichment and deconversion and developing opportunities around recycled fuel. The goal is to solve for near-, mid- and long-term scale while maintaining flexibility as the market evolves.

A3F has a very specific role in our deployment strategy. It is a purpose-built facility to fabricate fuel for Aurora-INL using an existing building at INL, where Oklo is installing and operating the fabrication equipment. On the authorization side, A3F was selected under DOE's Advanced Nuclear Fuel line pilot program, which is intended to support accelerated licensing and construction of advanced fuel fabrication capabilities. Execution is already underway. Initial construction activities have begun, and A3F is advancing in parallel with Aurora-INL so that fuel fabrication does not become a deployment gating constraint. We have also received DOE approval of both the NSDA and the PDSA for A3F, which enables us to move forward with final design and construction. And notably, Okla's PDSA was the first facility approved under DOE's fuel line pilot program, which is an important validation of the pathway we are using.

Next is the Tennessee Advanced Fuel Center, which is our first major step toward building long-term recycling capability. On-site and development progress, we completed initial geotechnical surveys and soil borings at the Tennessee site and initiated site development activities. On regulatory and licensing progress, we completed our planned NRC pre-application engagement and initiated a rolling NRC readiness review in advance of a future license application. And on fuel supply and partnerships, we were selected for DOE recycling research and development funding. The broader point is that this project is advancing on the site, regulatory and funding fronts at the same time, which is how we intend to move recycling from concept into real long-term fuel supply infrastructure.

Staying on fuel, this slide is about upstream fuel infrastructure and specifically uranium deconversion. We announced a potential joint venture with Centrus focused on deconversion, building on our prior relationship. What is strategically compelling is the intended location. Centrus' site in Pike County, Ohio, colocated with Centrus' enrichment operations and adjacent to our planned 1.2 gigawatt power campus. Deconversion is a critical upstream step in the domestic fuel supply chain, and colocation has the potential to improve logistics, reduce friction and strengthen both cost and supply resilience over time. It is important to note that these deconversion capabilities can support Okla's fuel needs and the fuel needs of other reactors and reactor types, including light water reactors. So this is another example of how we are looking to expand fuel infrastructure alongside fabrication and recycling, while the current focus remains on initial venture structuring and project planning.

Turning to isotopes. The Idaho Radiochemistry Laboratory is an important near-term asset and example of timely execution. We obtained the NRC materials license for the facility, which is a key operational milestone. The facility is expected to make first revenue this year, which also makes it one of the more near-term revenue-oriented pieces of our broader business. Strategically, the lab has the potential to provide the foundation for developing our isotope processing methods and then scaling them up to support future VIPR facilities. So this lab is well on its way to be both a practical operating asset and a foundational capability for scaling the isotopes business over time.

Now to Groves, our first radioisotope test reactor deployment. Groves is moving through a DOE-first authorization pathway, and we have already completed 2 important steps, executing the OTA under the reactor pilot program and receiving approval of the NSDA. Those matter because the OTA formally brings the project under the DOE pathway, while the NSDA locks in the safety and regulatory framework for the project. The next milestones are approval of the PDSA, which has now been submitted, approval of the DSA and then the readiness review and start-up approval. Groves is progressing through a structured DOE-first pathway that's designed to enable full project build-out and position the facility for start-up and operations.

And rather than just talk about it, I want to show you what we've executed. We'll pause here for a short video from the Groves site, and then I'll come back and walk through the key build milestones.

[Presentation]

Now that you've seen the progress for the Groves project, here's where we are on the remaining path to criticality. Site development and the structure were completed in 5 months. The reactor tank is installed, fuel has been procured and interior mechanical, electrical and plumbing installation is in progress. Auxiliary equipment is also in various stages of procurement. From here, the focus is on finishing the remaining construction activities, final installation of reactor equipment, integrated system testing and fuel delivery. The current execution target is criticality by July 4. We and others are showing nuclear assets can be built and turned on in less than 10 months. These are real examples that shatter the widely held belief that nuclear is slow. Instead, we are demonstrating that new nuclear can deploy at pace.

Groves is progressing rapidly. The structure is up, major components are in place, and the remaining work is the execution closeout and commissioning path to criticality. And one of the exciting things about this project is that it is fully executing a commercially viable sourcing strategy across all components and not relying on preexisting or nonscalable or nonviable components and capabilities. The lessons we are learning are teaching us a lot on the way to full commercial operations.

Before moving on, it is worth taking a step back and explaining what Groves actually is. Groves is our first radioisotope test reactor. And strategically, it serves as a test platform for Atomic Alchemy's production scale VIPR reactor platform. It is named in honor of General Leslie Groves, who directed the Manhattan project. From a design standpoint, it is a pool-type, water-cooled, non-pressurized reactor built for thermal neutron radiation using pressurized water reactor fuel bundles with low enriched uranium fuel.

Why that matters is that Groves is not just a single asset. It is designed to give us practical experience across design, manufacturing, procurement, construction, installation and ultimately, operations. The value here is both near term and long term, near term in getting this first asset built and operating and long term informing how future isotope production assets can be deployed and operated.

And one important point across the company is that these assets are not all following the same licensing path. We are taking a tailored approach depending on the asset, the site and the development objective. For certain first-of-a-kind assets and DOE site projects, we are pursuing DOE authorization. That includes Aurora-INL, A3F and Groves. For broader commercial deployment and other non-DOE assets, we are pursuing the NRC pathway. That includes Aurora Ohio, the Advanced Fuel Center in Tennessee and the Idaho Radiochemistry Laboratory, which received its NRC license earlier this year. The key takeaway is that we are not trying to force every asset through a single framework. We are using the pathway that best fits the specific asset and stage of development while also allowing lessons from early DOE authorized assets to inform future NRC licensed deployments.

With that, I'll turn it over to Craig for the financial update. Craig?

Thanks, Jake. 2025 was a strong year for the company as we significantly strengthened our balance sheet such that capital can act as an enabler of the strategic agenda Jake has just presented. On a full year basis, Oklo has a loss from operations of $139.3 million, which was primarily driven by payroll, general business expenses and professional fees associated with the capital market and asset deployment activities.

The operating loss also included noncash stock-based compensation expense of $41.8 million, which was impacted by the increase in the firm's share price during the year. Our loss before income taxes was $110.2 million, which included the benefit of interest and dividend income of $29.1 million from the investment in marketable securities.

Additionally, on a full year basis, our cash used in operating activities was $82.2 million. This number is inclusive of approximately $13 million of prepaid capital project expense that will ultimately become property, plant and equipment and run through our cash flows for investing activities. When adjusting for this figure, we reached $69.2 million in adjusted cash used in operating activities, which was within our guidance we provided for 2025 cash used in operating activities of $65 million to $80 million, demonstrating disciplined management of the company's cash reserves while also capitalizing on the tailwinds to accelerate growth opportunities.

The company intends to maintain a disciplined approach to cash management and capital allocation in 2026. We are raising our guidance for cash used in operating activities from $65 million to $80 million in 2025 to $80 million to $100 million in 2026. This measured increase will enable the company to expand headcount across its business units and execute on its business plans. As the company progresses asset deployments, we expect to increase our investment into projects across all 3 of our business units. We expect cash used in investing activities to range between $350 million and $450 million in 2026. This level of spend looks to drive progression of our strategy across all 3 business units, including powerhouse deployments at both Idaho National Labs and future power projects at locations such as Pike County, Ohio; fuel development for both our first powerhouse in Idaho as well as progressing potential fuel projects that could utilize HALEU, plutonium or recycled transuranic fuel pathways; isotope project for both groves in Texas; and potential projects in other locations; and other uses to support the overall corporation.

Oklo ended 2025 with cash and marketable securities of $1.4 billion. During the first month of 2026, we also raised an additional $1.182 billion net of fees, completing our $1.5 billion ATM program. This financing provides Oklo with a strong balance sheet, leaving the company well positioned to benefit from ongoing policy and regulatory tailwinds and to execute on our business plans in 2026 and beyond. Operator, we are now ready for questions.

[Operator Instructions] And your first question comes from Brian Lee with Goldman Sachs.

I appreciate all the updates here. Lots going on. Maybe just first one, you mentioned a lot of progress toward commercialization. I know there's a lot of focus around kind of the pipeline and customer status. Jake, can you maybe speak to where that sits today? Any new additions or conversion into binding agreements and any incremental visibility into more of that happening in 2026?

Brian, it's Craig. I'm not exactly sure why, but Jake just dropped off our line. I don't think it was because of the question. But I would say that clearly, Meta was an important anchor point towards that commercialization progress, as you mentioned. And kind of based on that, we continue to have conversations not only with Meta, but with other potential customers, both those we've announced and other ones that we're continuing to progress. But really, it is important that we think that Meta being an important anchor customer for us and the fact that we can do more not only in the Ohio location, but also with some of our kind of behind-the-meter on-campus customers and not only in the data center space, but there's a lot of work going on with U.S. military, predominantly in Alaska, but not limited to there as well as other industrial customers. And it does look like Jake's jumped back on. Jake, I went ahead and answered the question since I think you got disconnected.

Yes, it's perfect. I just -- I would say like I think at the end of the day, there's a pretty healthy pipeline that continues to kind of grow in different places. And I think one of the dynamics that's important is having Meta as a -- as one of the kind of basically a lead customer helps others want to come follow and kind of repeat that because sometimes finding the first customer is the biggest hurdle to get into. It creates a pretty powerful dynamic. And I think on top of that, like the locationing and how we built the strategy around where we see a lot of opportunity in Ohio is going to continue to kind of grow and scale with us.

Yes. Fair enough. And then just a second question on the CapEx guidance here. The $350 million to $450 million in 2026, it's a pretty meaningful pickup. Again, lots going on, and it seems like some areas accelerating. Can you maybe just provide a breakdown of where that CapEx is being allocated? You mentioned a couple of different locations. And then how should we think about the cadence into 2027 and future years off of this level? And then maybe just curious how much of the CapEx is being allocated to the Meta Pike site in Ohio?

Yes. So Brian, I'm not going to provide kind of a business unit-by-business unit or project-by-project breakdown at this point. And part of that is we're still doing a lot of work kind of refining cost estimates for certain projects as well as kind of progressing procurement activities across those projects. And it kind of feels like with where we are commercially, it would be good to kind of let those progress before throwing project bogeys out there as we're progressing procurement strategies.

But that being said, it's progressing things across all 3 business units. But clearly, the Idaho project is an important piece of that spend just given the criticality of giving that first power project up and off the ground. But we are also starting some preliminary work in places like Ohio for the Meta powerhouses. And there's also quite a bit of work that's underway in recycling for projects, for the potential project in Tennessee, things we're doing to get isotope projects off the ground. And there's also some scoping CapEx available for some of those fuel projects that Jake mentioned across HALEU, plutonium and transuranic fuels.

In terms of '26 to '27, I think given the project pace of delivery, I do think that we'll continue to see CapEx that will be at those levels. But it's really just a reflection of multiple projects going on in multiple dimensions across all 3 business units.

Yes. And I'll just echo, I think that's an important part about the positioning we have and also like the -- frankly, the ability to move more quickly and scale into the opportunity space as it is here and kind of set the direction and set ourselves up for very long-term success by flexing into all of that is, I think, a very important thing to be doing, which is great that we're in a position to do it.

Your next question comes from the line of Dimple Gosai with Bank of America.

Just a question on the regulatory strategy here, right? Can you give us a status update on the COLA timing and the PDC topical report review? Like how do you sequence the DOE authorization at INL with future NRC licensing for subsequent sites?

And on the same topic, did the government shutdown at the end of last year and some of the staffing constraints that we heard of at the DOE and NRC move any internal licensing time lines or anything? And does this change the schedule at all in terms of deployment or filings or anything? That's the first question.

Yes. I think -- I appreciate the questions. There's a couple of things in regulatory that are important. I think there's -- look, there's still, I think, sometimes some confusion about DOE authorization versus NRC licensing and how these things all fit together. The key thing is DOE authorization allows us to do the most important thing, which is build, which is learn by building now in a faster path, which is what we just talked about and shared a lot of information on. The progress we've been able to make on the [ ore plan ] wouldn't have happened without that pathway going forward. And in many ways, arguably, this is the way the policies were set up a long time ago. And it dates back even a little more recently, but still some time ago, back in 2018, there was a bill passed into law and signed into law called the Nuclear Energy Innovation Capability Act, and that set the stage for using Department of Energy capabilities and resources, including the regulatory authorization side to support kind of the first of the kind of builds because DOE has just a wider range of regulatory experience and flexibility. And now with the executive orders, they directed a pretty clear approach and prioritization of DOE to leverage that and build the capabilities to do that, which, frankly, they largely already had. It just said, put them to use to support these things, which is amazing because it's completely shattered the paradigms of the past. It's really eliminated a lot of the significant regulatory inefficiencies that have existed.

On top of that, it sets a good pathway for us to then build that first plant. But then also what we expect to see coming from the NRC as part of executive orders there that build on all the work from the ADVANCE Act before are driving a lot of new regulatory, frankly, pathways and development there that bridge from the DOE basically authorization itself. So we're expecting the NRC to fairly soon issue basically their approach, if you will, for converting a DOE authorized and built an operating facility to an NRC license facility, and we're in a great spot to be able to go through that and experience what that looks like.

That inherently is not like a call out because you're not getting a license to build and operate the plant. The plant is already built. So it's really a conversion process, which is cool. But they have to do the safety review and they have to reference and leverage everything before. Not only that, but we've also been working to include and loop and the NRC into our basically regulatory review with DOE. So they're seeing how it's done and they're getting experience watching and shattering those pieces, which is pretty powerful. And this is a key kind of opportunity to go, I think, faster.

It's really -- it's hard to overstate the value of focusing on actually moving out of the way of sort of if you think about what a nuclear company historically would have to do, what our product was, if you really look at it objectively before these opportunities existed, our first product was really more built towards shipping permitting applications, right, paperwork. Now because of the DOE authorization approach, it's building while doing that, which allows us to learn and iterate way more quickly because naturally, things come up and evolve and that helps you learn for really hard things that are actually really important to like deployment and scale.

Now all of that also translate very effectively to what we're going to do with the NRC in Ohio. And I think what's pretty clear is DOE and their approaches and the milestones we fit with them show that they can do a safety review of searching fast reactors. And they've done a lot of those before because they oversaw the power plants that we build our legacy off of. On top of that, the NRC has also shown by recent developments that they've had, including, for example, the construction permit work with TerraPower that they can do that work as well. And looping them into this and leveraging the experiences and expertise that DOE has because DOE has done this stuff before is quite constructive and quite efficient, frankly.

So we're waiting to see the new framework from the NRC to start executing down the pathway of preparing to convert a license. But in parallel, we maintain -- we continue to work through effectively developing out the combined license now to submit for Ohio.

That said, it's very important to also flag something else. Part of the executive order is there's significant regulatory work and rewriting going on that could significantly influence our approach in a constructive and productive way that we would expect to reduce costs and time lines as well as add additional regulatory kind of confidence and certainty. So that is all a very live situation as we speak, and we're watching eagerly as various things flow out from the NRC on that front. But it's fair to say that, that's probably going to be quite constructive, but also have some tweaks, if not more significant changes on our actual regulatory, I'll call it, semantic strategy. In other words, we still get an NRC license, but the vehicles by which we might do that may be a bit different because of what's happening at the NRC.

That said, we've been preparing and continuing to go through the pathway of pre-application that addresses general and somewhat generic or cross-cutting issues that are important for licensing for us. And those will set the stage for us to actually have -- reference those in whatever application structure takes place going forward from the NRC. Again, at this point, we still expect a Part 52 combined license, but that's just because we haven't seen what the new menu of options are going to look like as well, which we expect to happen over the course of the next few months, and then we'll adapt kind of a strategy from there.

But a couple of key things that we see are obviously just having the experience of going through the Aurora plant in Idaho under DOE authorization, going through the DOE regulatory process, having the NRC part of it, taking an iterative approach, learning by actually building and scaling that and then applying that outward. On top of that, we're also getting experience from NRC licensing already on the isotope side, having obtained an NRC license now. It's a great win. To your latter part of your question, Dimple, yes, we did face some delays on that with that license application back in the fall during the shutdown. But now we have the license in hand and off we go. I don't see any of the other effects that are, frankly, at this point materially affecting our progress on the other activities that we have going on with the NRC and with DOE. But that was definitely something that was noted.

And then the last thing I'll just say is one important thing, too, that's very helpful is in the current frameworks, which again may evolve and change a little bit, but -- or frankly, a lot possibly, the approaches with what we're licensing and the work we've been doing on the isotope side, not just the material handling license, but the actual production reactor, like basically like the full commercial version of Groves that we've spent some NRC pre-application time with, that has a different pathway than what the commercial, like Aurora power plant version has. And having the experience that we gained across both of those and what we're gaining on the recycling side and what we've done on steel fabrication is very helpful because we see a whole spectrum of different parts of the NRC and can cross-connect best practices and help guide things from our development of an application as well as our engagement with them in the review process, and that helps in many, many ways in terms of some scaling efficiencies and bringing best practices from various business units across. And that's pretty unique for us because we're taking on that broad kind of set of -- broad set of projects. So yes, that's kind of the way I'm seeing that landscape evolve and how all this is moving forward.

Your next question comes from the line of George Gianarikas with Canaccord Genuity.

You mentioned in the past that about 70% of the Aurora powerhouse components are being sourced from nonnuclear supply chains, which is, I think, you brought Kiewit into the picture. Is there any update on what the 75-megawatt reactor CapEx should look like? And if not a complete update, maybe any early indication on the dollars per kilowatt there?

Yes. I mean I think this is one of the things that's actively evolving from where we're at in terms of the build cycle and what we're seeing is doable and also what we're seeing can be done to either move some time lines to the left and build it faster and pay more to do that or not, right? But generally speaking, speed is a very important thing for us. So that's how we're trying to focus on this. That also gives us a lot of insights into what we're going to do from a more, I would say, optimized strategy with the Ohio plants that would allow us to scale those according to what makes the most sense from sort of like the experiences learned from the Idaho plant.

So what that's all to say is we're going to have more information as we continue to get into the actual deeper works beyond some of the civil and truck works and have some relevant updates that come accordingly as I get deeper into it. But what we've learned on the procurement side is we've been able to find ways to pull schedule to the left in different ways constructively. We've been able to find ways to look at how some things can be accelerated, but one aspect of that is sometimes it helps the fact that we have the Aurora plants in Ohio coming afterwards because it can maybe accelerate some things here in Idaho to help us with other components and other parts and other sourcing for scaling those to the other Ohio plants and maybe having some benefits that happens that way.

So the general view we have is it's evolving as we go through on this and as we develop and enhance the relationships we have and we look at different angles of attack on the different fronts of what drives cost and what doesn't. And some things are candidly not worth necessarily driving the modernization for the first plant that we'd like to see in terms of the actual supply chain and the procurement of it. So we might pay a little bit more to move faster and other things, it is working on that. It's a bit of a dynamic situation that we're continuing to evolve and look at.

At the end of the day, though, like my view is like, generally speaking, all of these things can live like pretty much every part outside of the fuel can live outside of the nuclear like conventional supply chain. But I think what's really important is I think that paradigm has actually been sort of inverted as of late because there's -- we're seeing growth in the industry for the first time in a while. So you're actually seeing folks bring forward more disruptive approaches and kind of taking away some of the legacy models and approaches that were driving significant costs and inefficiencies by sort of locking into the status quo across different suppliers in different parts of the entire sort of value chain, if you will. And a pretty cool thing that we're seeing is that we can actually get to be, I don't know, a lot more thoughtful engagement from our partners about how to do that and more constructive engagement about knocking out some of the synthetic like nuclear cost multipliers that have existed before.

I know I say this a lot, but it's hard to overstate the value of modern -- of basically taking out some of those nuclear cost multipliers, right? The "nuclear idiot index," if you will, is really, really high and is right to be changed by changing how we design, how we try to minimize and reduce parts that come in with some of the typical nuclear classifications to them by taking advantage of passive and enhanced safety features, but also by modernizing how our suppliers and ourselves actually deliver those plans. But we're finding that there are some places where, you know what, just easier to deal with legacy for the Idaho plant to get it up and running because that's more important. But that sets the stage for then how we can actually solve that problem in Ohio because we learned the best practices to do that. So it's pretty interesting to see that combo sort of evolving and taking shape.

Generally speaking, though, we're seeing a very different way of engagement across most of the supply chain and not having some of the conventional legacy requirements. And what I really mean by that is not being a light water reactor is actually really constructive. Counterintuitively, a value of that is not having to play in the legacy supply chains with the historical cost structures in place there. That's actually worth a ton because it gives us a lot more flexibility because we're not buying light water reactor parts by and large. I mean, yes, there's some similarities, but we're not a light water reactor. So a lot of it is different. And that gives us a lot more flexibility. And it also helps us focus on where do we need to flex into building ourselves, what parts make the most sense to buy to go faster or build ourselves and maybe build ourselves to scale or build ourselves to deconstrained supply chains or build ourselves just to be cheaper. So it's an active growth aspect of the business, and it's also how we're looking at not just sort of the capital cost modeling and data sets, but also the long-term cost structures of the business and also like opportunities in the business.

Your next question comes from the line of Ryan Pfingst with B. Riley Securities.

Somewhat of a follow-up to some of the comments there, Jake. For the agreement with Meta, they ended up choosing 2 sodium-cooled reactor developers following their nuclear RFP process. Can you rehash some of the benefits of your design and why Meta might have chosen it?

Yes. I think the answer right now is the fact that we've got -- I think they see the benefit of fast reactor technology between us and TerraPower, right? That's just repeating what you said. But basically, I think that translates across a couple of like vectors. One is the technical maturity, something that's vastly underappreciated even by a lot of nuclear experts. I think the fact is as a society, we've built a lot of these plants, we've learned a lot about what doesn't work and what does work. And in the U.S., notably the experiences we got through EBR2 and FFTF, the ability that those plants had to achieve pretty exciting operational characteristics, both in terms of operating capacity factors, in terms of occupational dose rates, in terms of how to service and run those plants, right? Like their operating capacity factors were competitive and exceeded, in many cases, light-water plants at the time, which shows a lot of the inherent benefits of the technology itself. And it's the only technology that's really been able to do that. And on top of that, I think there's a clear project -- like clear trajectory on the cost benefits of sodium being a relatively materially benign fluid with commonly available steel. In other words, you can use it and it's quite compatible with stainless alloys. That's great in terms of opening up supply chains and reducing costs and avoiding major cost drivers of very exotic alloys you might need if you didn't have those benefits and then also not being pressurized and then having the benefits of being able to operate at relatively higher temperatures and then the features that come from that for passive heat rejection through the phenomenal heat transfer characteristics that sodium has as well as operating at higher temperatures and what you can do to reject heat to air because you're at slightly higher temperatures. So all in all, it translates to a lot of generally speaking, cost, I would say, cost benefits as well as the strong operational history and high technology readiness. I think those are big features there.

Ryan, maybe just a couple of adds there. I think as we continue to emphasize in calls like this, the importance of having multiple field pathways, I think, was another important point of distinction and being able to have proof points against those pathways. And I think another important part on Meta was already having a ROFR in place and access to land in Ohio, I think, was another important advantage. And then we've leveraged that land access even more with what we could potentially do with Centrus.

Your next question comes from the line of Vikram Bagri with Citi.

I have 2 questions. I'll ask them together. First, maybe for you, Craig. Can you talk about the timing of Aurora-INL? It appears time line shifted slightly to the right with the change in language from late '27 to early '28. Now it says 2028. Am I reading that right? And what led to the shift in timing?

Also, I see it's a 75-megawatt reactor. Can you talk about what the CapEx requirements for this reactor will be or when you will have a greater clarity into CapEx requirement?

And then secondly, for you, Jake, I see you conducted fast spectrum plutonium criticality experiment. Can you share what that entails and your expectation of timing of plutonium allocations that we've been looking forward to?

Yes, in terms of the last bit of your question, I'll take that first, that we're still doing a lot of work. And Jake kind of mentioned this dynamic of challenging the cost versus the time line because trying to bring time lines forward could have a cost element to it, and we're really trying to balance both of those pieces. And I think we'll have more information to share around what the cost of that first asset looks like later this year as well as how we look to bring cost down on future deployments.

And in terms of the time line, I think I've been pretty consistent in the various investor meetings that I've been in that we're targeting a 2028 time line. We know it's an aggressive target, but we feel like the industry and our customers are pushing us towards being able to hit those time lines. And it's also, I think, important why we're doing things on project like growth where we can learn how to bring down capital costs and learn how to bring down project time lines as well.

I think one thing we saw with the -- like what we're having happened with -- I think that basically, the time line elements are as we're putting all these things together, right, like we're -- we have a path of being able to start hitting important construction milestones this year, doing some plant commissioning work but getting the full plant in nuclear heat production just is going to really happen in 2028, right? It's just where it's going to be. So I think at this point, we're seeing that line up to make that kind of the case.

We're always looking at different ways that might pull parts of the schedule to the left, and there might be some things that kind of help with that. But a lot of this gets to how we can execute on building this thing and doing it quickly and moving through learning and iterative processes relatively quickly. And I think it's important because we're trying to also make sure we capture lessons learned and not designing the fly to implement all those things, but that help us with Ohio. And that's important because that means that the following plants are going to obviously show those improvements significantly. And that's a key thing about small reactors, right, is the cost and time line of iterations are just way lower. And that's how you really drive learning and scale as we see everywhere.

On to the plutonium front, yes, it was pretty cool. We got to partner with Las Alamos National Laboratory and go out to the Nevada National Security site. Basically, what we got to work with was a small plutonium, like, basically metal assembly that we use uranium as a reflector and plutonium as the primary fueling board and got to run it through some criticality basically benchmarks and tests as well as some reactivity measurements, which means you're actually taking the system, putting some power into it, heating it up a little bit and looking at the thermal expansion and the other effects that cause it to shut itself down naturally. It's important because while a lot of that data has been out there, doing it in this kind of way helped us get more fidelity in certain ranges of particular interest for us relevant to our use as well as just to enhance our overall models for validation purposes. It was pretty cool because it was really doing that, right? I think we're putting in a couple of kilowatts at most in terms of thermal power, but in a very small system that's literally very small, it matters and it was able to heat the system up and we got to see all those insanely like fast dynamics and responses.

I've gotten to spend a little time around like a high [ strinium ] fast reactor system in my past, but this thing was even faster in how it behaved. It's very, very like tightly responsive, which was awesome. And the way they ran it was just a pure testament to like how robust a small tightly coupled fast reactor is in terms of like inherent feedbacks and all those benefits.

So that was helpful. We anticipate there's going to be more work there that just adds more fidelity to basically improve reactor performance and reduce some uncertainties throughout the system that ultimately translate to dollars saved or more dollars earned, right, for both. And then the other part of it is with the plutonium awards, we're expecting those things to kind of progress. I know the Department of Energy is going through the active kind of reviews of the request for applications they put out, and we're pretty excited about our positioning for that. But time lines, I think we'll watch it eagerly this quarter coming up, but I think it depends on a couple of factors that are still evolving.

Your next question comes from the line of Jeffrey Campbell with Seaport Research Partners.

My first one is, will the deconversion discussions you've noted result in Centrus increasing its enrichment capabilities from its current small volumes? Or do you envision the deconversion capability as independent of any particular uranium enrichment supplier?

I mean from the deconversion technology side that we've worked through and we've been developing out, it's pretty flexible. I mean it's based on a UF6 input and try to supply some things we think can help scale and drive costs more effectively at the facility level. So it's pretty flexible.

Part of why we explored it with Centrus to start is just given the positioning we have in Ohio, the fact we're going to be building a lot of plants right there by where they have it. There's some significant economies of scale of putting deconversion there as well as potentially fuel fabrication there and the reactors there. So you have a pretty cool campus that goes from enrichment to deconversion to fabrication to actual reactors, all in that general area and in a very attractive market to be in overall.

So that's how we see kind of the opportunity on that. I think the space we see is -- I think we've got some cool technology pieces. We're eager to explore what that looks like to integrate with theirs, like their facility and their approach. The idea would be, of course, to support their significant growth and expansion. But yes, we see this as being broadly suited for any kind of uranium hexafluoride approach. So any of the, I'll call it, more conventional centrifuge enrichment approaches.

When we talk with other enrichers that use uranium hexafluoride for different processes, a similar benefit. And then there's some of the other technology developers that are working on true metal-to-metal kind of enrichment. And obviously, you don't need deconversion for that. And for us, that's also great because you can just take the metal right into fabrication. So it's kind of how we're looking at the landscape.

My second one is, I thought your point about pursuing different licensing pathways is interesting. Specific to fuel and fuel recycling, why did you choose the NRC licensing pathway for Tennessee? And how does this differ from the fuel facility licensing under DOE at INL?

Yes. As we see it, like the DOE INL one set up very well under the -- well, first of all, we were going to need to make fuel for the Aurora plant. So a long time ago, we said, where can we do this and what's the fastest way to do this? And at the time and as it maintains to be true now is to use one of their existing buildings and set up the fabrication equipment there. But we want to scale that outward as soon as reasonably possible. And already sitting on a DOE facility, just makes sense to have that under their kind of purview. So we look at how that can scale given the reactor pilot program and the fuel line production pilot program.

In terms of the commercial kind of use case around the recycling, given where that is and it's designed to be a fully commercial facility, like that is something we see as taking an NRC licensing approach. Inevitably, by the way, we've also engaged with the NRC in pre-application on fuel fabrication because at some point, we're going to need full commercial fuel fabrication. So that also will end up becoming more -- become NRC licensed. But being able to get the repetitions of permitting and regulatory oversight and execution by actually building and operating these things under the authorization just moves faster and the programs were there for the fuel side. The NRC side, then we see those converting over to the NRC or at least helping inform where we do go fully with the full NRC licensed commercial fuel fab facility. And then it's similar that we're just kind of at that stage on the recycling piece already and needed to do a lot more pre-application work there because there's more, I would say, fundamental licensing-type topics to cover on recycling, and that's why we've been at that for several years now and why we're pretty excited to move into this kind of rolling readiness review after completing the major items we wanted to in the pre-application side.

So that's actually part of the story that probably gets maybe a little bit underappreciated, but the progress made on NRC licensing for the recycling facility in Tennessee is quite exciting. It's quite staggering actually to see how much work has gone into that and how much progress has been made through preapplication getting ready for a full application submission.

That said, with the DOE life cycle program out, I also -- I would not be surprised if there is a pathway that makes sense to pursue recycling through a DOE authorization approach for kind of a pilot facility. That's something we'll evaluate should that make sense to do. If it does make sense, then we'll kind of take our lessons learned to go there while we continue working with the NRC for full commercial scale. But we just see that all these DOE pathways allow us to move to first of a kind more quickly and then better position us for NRC licensing at scale.

Your next question comes from the line of Sameer Joshi with H.C. Wainwright.

I just have one on the Atomic Alchemy Groves test reactor. There's roughly 3.5 months left for your targeted criticality on July 4. There is some amount of construction left and some procurement of auxiliary equipment left. How confident are you that you would meet that deadline?

Yes. I mean this has been a great rallying pride for the company to both design and build quickly and also learn lessons quickly and very quickly. So like when you look at how far this has come, we feel pretty confident that we're going to be able to hit or meet that -- hit or beat that date of being able to pull rods and take the system critical. Fuel has been ordered. All the major items generally have been ordered. There's still some work about trying to see what we can do to make sure we build ourselves enough buffer time to be able to receive and manage all this. But it's a logistical effort to time all the permitting steps with the ability to receive the fuel, to load the fuel, have the equipment on hand, find some ways to maybe accelerate how we can come up with some solutions that allow us to have the right kind of things that are available now versus maybe what we want to have more commercial scale and have some replaceability for them for certain things on instrumentation and detection. But that's part of what this feature in this facility is for. It gives us the ability to run it, work with what's available and then have some flexibility to pivot those things in. But you look at how far this has come by doing -- going from a bare field to excavation to putting the concrete in the foundation, putting in the vessel, loading that, building out the structure, having other major items in order, getting stuff ready to be received and installed, like it's pretty exciting how that's all coming together. So we feel very good about that. It's a challenge. It's not going to be easy, but we feel very good about the position we have. And I constantly am trying to say, how can we make sure we can move faster and do better.

And what's interesting, too, is like there are going to be some other companies that are going to achieve criticality before that date probably, which is very exciting because, again, what I said is it shows there's a spectrum of solutions that are going to deliver on that. What's great about this one is it includes real civil works. And some of these other ones kind of are just a different scale. They don't quite have the same effort or they're maybe using preexisting prefabricated fuel from DOE facilities or inventories and other things that kind of allow you to hit that kind of critical milestone, which is awesome, like it's really important. But like part of what we've learned in this process is and with Groves that's so exciting to me is it's a full design build that wasn't using pre-existing stuff, right?

Like I mean, yes, there are some things that are on inventory and shelves from our suppliers, but it's not like we're trying to -- we're not using fuel that was already made by somebody else and sitting on some DOE warehouse or something like that. Like the whole thing has gone through from -- pretty much from scratch. And it's a pretty powerful story and us and our ability to actually build and deliver that and execute in building something that fast that's actually going to make really make -- it's going to be pretty cool.

Your next question comes from the line of Sherif Elmaghrabi with BTIG.

Just one for me today. Craig mentioned the fact that you had land in Ohio help -- help win the deal with Meta. And I believe you got that land from an economic or with help from an economic development council in the state. So can you speak to why they saw Aurora powerhouses as an attractive use for the land? And do you see similar opportunities in other states?

Yes. This is like -- this is -- I love this question. This goes back to Mike's strategic vision that I think, Caroline, the co-founder saw here and some of the rest of our team saw with respect to these opportunities of taking federal land resources that were being sort of cleaned up and made available and repurposed for economic development and Fed is a great position for that, right?

If you're not familiar with the site, it is home to one of the largest enrichment plants in the whole world. It's incredible feet of industrial like might and strength. But as that plant was retired and they're looking at repurposing a lot of that land, it became an opportunity for saying, hey, there's a lot of infrastructure here that would make sense to build into, we should do this.

And so back before ChatGPT, before kind of this recognition of an inflection point coming on power needs, we saw that, hey, there could be some opportunities to fit some power plants there. We're going to need fuel from Centrus. So we announced several years ago a relationship with them to potentially sell them power and be able to build some infrastructure there, including the power plants. And so we started working with them to do that and had that vision. And then all of a sudden, all these dynamics start to come together very attractively, all in a relatively short order, but we have found that position as a really useful thing to have.

Along the way of doing that, we also learned the exact thing you're asking, which is there's actually some good opportunities if we do that in the right ways strategically at the right time in other sites. And so yes, that is the thing we're doing. Like I think I alluded to earlier in the call is what we're -- everything we need to do to deliver power to customers is illuminating things and opportunities for us to do, in some ways, more, in many ways more and do it more efficiently and cost effectively by doing it ourselves and sort of leveraging our side. So instead of working with others who have the land, developing the land ourselves or partnering with folks to develop land together and bringing power to is a pretty important differentiation for us. So we're pretty excited about like the opportunities we see around that. And by being -- because of our business model, we have to solve those things. So it's important because then we're forced to solve the really tricky things that actually make deployment hard, which isn't always just the building of the reactor, it's all the stuff around it.

So our insights on that are actually allowing us to create a lot of value by doing those things. So yes, we see that, and we see other opportunities that are pretty exciting. And what they saw with us was they wanted nuclear in the area because they had a strong history of nuclear. They wanted economic growth because they had a lot of jobs that were in the area for that, but were then being phased out as decommissioning is kind of progressing. And we were well positioned to support some of that. Now we're going even bigger there. So there's a lot of opportunity that's going to come because of that. And I think they also saw that like from -- and obviously, I'm interpreting my opinion of them. I mean they're the best ones to ask directly, but like they also saw that we were like building power and infrastructure is great because it creates halo effects. And again, this was pre the whole data center boom, but it creates halo effects for other industries. And obviously, data centers get a lot of that attention now. But I think that's what they saw was if you build -- if you have some power plants coming here, you're going to probably have some other opportunities that come with that. So that's, I think, what they saw and how we saw it.

Your next question comes from the line of Eric Stine with Craig-Hallum.

So obviously, the Meta agreement quite important, and it does create that mechanism for prepayment. But also, I would assume, predicated on a firm PPA. So just curious progress there. And you mentioned that other potential customers may want to follow this model. So maybe just talk about or characterize the PPA discussions with other potential customers.

Yes. I guess like the way I kind of think of it is we -- this is one of the cool things about how we look at the landscape with what we've tried to position ourselves into is power is a massive need for a lot of folks. And our ability to work with Meta was -- we positioned and structured so that like, they want us to be successful, we want to be successful, we also need to make sure and just like they do kind of that we have the opportunity to work with different potential partners in different areas and in different ways. And the way we try to structure that agreement allows us to have the ability to obviously prioritize where we are in Ohio with them, but also provides opportunities for them to either work with us or others to work with us on either growing there or around there or in other sites.

And so overall, like I think what we see is -- I mean, we're seeing the inbound and the focus on actual structure now that we have an example of it really kind of change in a constructive way. So we're really talking about like meaningful binding offtakes that emulate similar dynamics to it to have a structure that looked like prepayment that allow us to drive project certainty, but also allow us to make sure we're working with partners that are committed to sort of success here for us and have the right understanding and the right sort of, I'll call it, grace built into how they're going to work with us as well as commitment, and that's pretty important.

And we're finding -- we found that like I think the tone and the tenor and the approach and the conversations we've had has focused into the major players are going to be the right ones to kind of look at there and has kind of accelerated the conversation set since announcing that deal. So we feel pretty -- I think I feel personally quite excited about how this sets the stage for how we're going to work with both Meta and potentially others as they come to the table. But we don't see a shortage of need or appetite. I mean there's way more opportunities.

It's just -- it's a huge number of opportunities. But this does allow us to have a framework that helps us clearly know who and how to prioritize and who's going to come to the table with the right things that kind of show that commitment as a partner to help us actually execute successfully. I hope that kind of answers the question. I don't know, Craig, if you want to add anything to that.

No. I like that.

Okay. And just so on that, I mean, so next step then would be to see a firm PPA with Meta. I mean, is that the right way to think about this here with that mechanism now in place? And as an example, whether it's with Meta or someone else, it would be a firm PPA just to kind of move this area, this development potentially in Southern Ohio forward?

Yes. I'd be kind of clear, like I think this is a binding commitment to provide power and from us for them to buy power from us. So like what we see is this sets the stage to then get into the actual execution on the preprocurement on the longest lead items a fuel and some other items as well as ensuring the project into those stages. So then, yes, convert over to a PPA.

I know we've been saying this for a long time, but the approach we've been taking with customers is not to rush to PPA, but find better binding offtake structures. And this is very much what we had in mind because overdefining a PPA now isn't the right answer versus having a binding commitment that allows us to scale into the right kind of PPA structure after this goes forward. And that's a very important like point of kind of distinguishment, I guess, or differentiation because of what this allows us to do to define that as we work through this with them.

So yes, looking out over the next year or so, I imagine that's where we'll kind of see the PPA come together. But I mean, part of that is the time lines are going to evolve a little bit based on exactly specific need sets and how to best structure this. But like at the end of the day, that's what's important here is that this is a binding offtake and a binding agreement to support that.

And Jake, I would just add, it's trying to progress both the asset deployment plans in lockstep with the commercial discussions on the PPA so we can make sure that we get the right asset level returns. But clearly, the lock-in elements that Jake mentioned that we have with Meta really becomes an important enabler for the projects we intend to do in Ohio.

Your next question comes from the line of Derek Soderberg with Cantor Fitzgerald.

Just one for me. Jake, government policy and the regulatory environment broadly has been pretty supportive. I'm wondering, based on your ongoing conversations with the DOE, the NRC, do you expect any new government programs or regulatory changes this year that potentially could help you guys accelerate your plans even faster?

Yes. I think what we see is the governments like -- I mean kind of gave a very [ long-winding ] answer to Dimple earlier on this similarly. But like we do expect there to be additional like federal action that's continuing to be supportive and trying to find different ways to help accelerate around this. I think the nuclear life cycles initiative is an important one. I think that's pretty also significantly underappreciated, but it's basically setting the stage for very significant federal commitments to states that are focused on addressing the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle and the natural economic development kind of approach to doing so is going to be anchored around recycling. So we're pretty excited about how that looks and what the benefit is going to be that trickle out from that.

Additionally, from the executive orders, there's continuing to be significant activity around the NRC and kind of, let's say, reform and modernization work at the NRC that includes a significant amount of work going into modernizing and updating the -- like basically the suite of regulations there. And we're seeing some of that start to trickle outward, but we know there's a lot more coming. And I think that's going to play out across -- I mean, from what we can tell, like everything, which is generally, I think, a pretty darn good thing. So we expect there to be added clarity, enhanced schedule certainty, reduced time lines, reduce costs across the board around a whole bunch of different relevant things for us. And given we have so many projects and given we're doing so many things across the space because of the opportunity of integrating these things, we see that those line up really favorably for us to benefit from those. And in some ways, being agile and nimble like we are, gives us a better pathway to take advantage of those than if we had a license application in already. I know it sounds kind of funny, but that's kind of how we see the space.

We have time for one more question, and that question comes from the line of Craig Shere with Tuohy Brothers.

So on Brian's CapEx question in 2027, Craig, you seem to suggest the investment spend could continue at 2026 levels. Depending on approvals and partner capital, is it possible to see a further stair stepping into next year? And given what seems like $2.5 billion of pro forma cash and investments, including the January ATM you hit, is it reasonable to say that, that's sufficient to carry you through at least to next year? And finally, do you have enough fuel for that 75 megawatts at INL?

So I'll let Jake answer the last question, but we're very well capitalized for 2026 and beyond. But -- and I think as we've talked about in earlier conversations, the one thing we've not yet been able to execute on, but it's definitely part of our overall long-term capitalization strategy is what we might be able to do at what I would call the asset-level financing approach, so things like project financing.

And in terms of the level of spend, I think one thing that Jake's talked 2.5 years at Oklo is expect the unexpected because I think we see more opportunities ahead of us than we did this time last year. But I do think what's going to happen in the years ahead is I think kind of the nature of the spend will change in terms of seeing more. As our projects progress, especially in the fuel space, we talked a lot about recycling, I could see that kind of the split of the capital changing over time, which is also why I think it's important that we've been able to demonstrate an ability to raise capital in the capital markets.

And we've got other levers at our disposal in the future, which would be project financing. We're having discussions with the energy -- with EDF, which used to be the loan program office. And we definitely make sure that the treasury team under Graham Johnson's leadership is always kind of on top of the next thing. And I'm really proud of what the team achieved in 2025.

That concludes our question-and-answer session. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Jake Dewitte, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, for closing comments.

Thank you, and thank you all for joining us today as we get into kind of the opportunities with -- or basically updates on all these opportunities that we're leaning into and executing against.

2025 was a pretty exciting year. It wrapped in a pretty high note and hit off to a really good start this quarter that we're currently in based on some of the milestones we talked about hitting with the Meta announcement, for example. I think as we continue to scale into building and execution, we are postured as a very, I think, strong position to learn through doing and something that has not been in the nuclear ecosystem in meaningful ways largely since kind of the 1960s, I would contend. And so very exciting time for the space, very exciting time to see all sorts of new things be learned in a modern context, including how to best design and build and deploy and scale across the ecosystem.

Given our positioning and our posture and our business model, we're also uniquely suited to learn a lot about where the opportunities are for us to lean into, both in terms of where we can create value, whether we build things ourselves, whether we acquire or merge or buy companies or just partner with folks to buy sourcing or supplies from them or material from them, it gives us a lot of good insights about how to actually execute here.

That's the key thing now. What we're solving for is broad, scaled nuclear execution, which really translates to how we can build, how we can license, we can operate, how we can source and supply in-house and do all the things we need to do to actually do what we're trying to achieve.

We're also really excited by the progress we've made on the isotope side. We've shown we can obtain an NRC license. We've shown we can execute against DOE authorization across multiple lines, and we've shown that we can also build a real physical asset, a real reactor in incredible time lines and also internalize all those lessons learned, the things we've learned that are hard, the things we've learned that are easier, the things that didn't work and the things that do work and help apply those to where we go forward and aim for turning that reactor on by July 4, which will be a really exciting milestone for us.

So with that, I'll go ahead and say thank you again for everyone who joined and look forward to the next quarterly update. Thank you all.

Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's conference call. Thank you all for joining, and you may now disconnect.

Thank you for standing by. My name is Tina, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Oklo Third Quarter 2025 Financial Results and Business Update Call. [Operator Instructions]

It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Sam Doane, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, and thank you, operator. Welcome, everyone, to Oklo's Third Quarter 2025 Earnings and Company Update Call. I'm Sam Doane, Oklo's Director of Investor Relations. Joining me today are Jake Dewitte, Oklo's Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer; and Craig Bealmear, our Chief Financial Officer. Today's accompanying slide presentation is available on the Investor Relations section of our website.

Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that today's discussion, including our prepared remarks and the Q&A session that follows, will include forward-looking statements. These statements reflect our current views regarding trends, assumptions, risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed today. We encourage you to review the forward-looking statements disclosure included in our supplemental slides. Additional information on relevant risk factors can also be found in our most recent filings with the SEC. Please note that Oklo assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.

With that, I'll now turn the call over to Jake Dewitte, Oklo's Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer. Jake?

Thanks, Sam. The first half of this year brought an incredible wave of momentum across the advanced nuclear sector from new federal programs and executive actions to growing customer and investor interest in clean, reliable power. That momentum has continued into the third quarter and is creating a very different environment for deployment than even a year ago. We strongly believe Oklo is uniquely positioned to thrive in this environment. Our mission at Oklo continues to be focused and clear. To deliver clean, reliable, affordable energy at a global scale.

We started this company with the belief that Advanced Nuclear Power could play a transformative role in the world's energy future. That meant rethinking everything? Are we design reactors, how we license and feel them and how we operate them and engage customers. That same vision continues to guide us today and it remains fully aligned with where we believe policy, technology and customer demand are headed. Our competitive advantages come from the intersection of several core strategies. Our business model, our scalable design and our proven technology.

First, our build-own-operate model allows us to sell power directly to customers under long-term contracts. That creates recurring revenue and streamlines the regulatory process by keeping ownership and operational control within Oklo. Second, our small scalable design means we can deploy assets quickly and incrementally, matching customer demand while leveraging existing industrial supply chains and factory fabrication. That reduces on-site construction risk, lowers cost and supports faster rollout. And third, our liquid metal [ stadium ] cool technology is built on a foundation of more than 400 combined reactor years of operating experience worldwide, including the experimental [ breeder reactor 2 ], which operated successfully for 3 decades in the United States. That operating record is one of the most tested, demonstrated and validated in advanced nuclear history, and it gives us deep confidence in the performance, safety and reliability of our design. It's also the reason we can move directly into commercialization without the need for costly time-consuming demonstration plans.

Oklo was building on that proven foundation to become the hub for metal fuel and fast reactor innovation, integrating design, licensing, fuel supply and recycling into a unified platform. This gives us a significant flexibility across fuels, [indiscernible], recycled material and down-blended alternatives and positions Oklo at the center of how this next phase of Advanced Nuclear Power will scale. Additionally, Oklo's work across areas needed to deploy its reactors to position the company to benefit from capabilities, including products and services from fuel fabrication recycling and isotopes to go along with power and heat sales from its reactors. Together, these advantages position Oklo to deploy at speed and scale with the model built for long-term growth and leadership in advanced nuclear energy.

We have continued to make meaningful progress this quarter across every part of the business, from licensing and project execution to fuel development partnerships and the customer pipeline.

On the regulatory front, we were selected for 3 projects under the Department of Energy's new Reactor Pilot Program, or RPP, giving Oklo access to Department of Energy authorization pathways that accelerate deployment time lines and complement our ongoing NRC work. And we submitted our principal design criteria topical report to the NRC and received notice of acceptance in just 15 days, about half the time typically expected. NRC also indicated that the draft evaluation is expected in early 2026 which would be less than half the traditional review time line. And just before the RPP announcement, Oklo also completed a readiness assessment with the NRC for the Phase 1 of its [ coal ] application, which found no gaps to application acceptance for review.

We also broke ground on the Aurora INL, marking the start of physical construction activities. We also advanced plans for Atomic Alchemy Pilot Project under the RPP. Finally, we successfully completed fuel assembly flow testing, demonstrating progress in the fabrication and handling systems that will serve many Oklo powerhouses.

In fuel and recycling, we announced Oklo's Advanced Fuel Center up to $1.68 billion investment that anchors our long-term fuel supply chain and were selected for the Department of Energy's Advanced Nuclear Fuel line pilot program, which accelerates U.S. fuel fabrication capacity. We achieved a key regulatory milestone with the Department of Energy's approval of the Nuclear Safety Design Agreement, or NSDA for the Aurora fuel fabrication facility. The NSDA, the first approved under the DOE's fuel line pilot projects was completed in under 2 weeks and demonstrates a new authorization pathway that can help unlock U.S. industrial capacity, strength in national energy security and accelerate domestic fuel production under the executive order, deploying advanced nuclear reactor technologies for national security.

The approval reflects the strength of our technical submissions and proactive DOE engagement and builds on our Aurora INL groundbreaking to advance an integrated model of fuel production, plant construction and power delivery. We also strengthened our partnership with Idaho National Laboratory through a new agreement with Battelle Energy Alliance, the labs management and operations contractor. The collaboration focuses on advancing fuel and materials research that supports Oklo's and other companies' commercial deployments and takes advantage of Aurora INL's unique ability to generate real-world data during operation, including fast neutrons for testing and research. That data will help us characterize materials faster, characterize fuels faster, improve designs more efficiently and continue driving innovation across the nuclear technology landscape.

In other words, this partnership is about expanding the Aurora INL's mission to include fast neutron radiation capabilities. These are capabilities that have been lacking in the U.S. for decades. We signed new international partnerships with European nuclear companies Blykalla and newcleo to advance joint technology and field manufacturing capabilities and demonstrate our emerging technical leadership in this space.

On the customer pipeline side, we're evaluating potential power sales with the Tennessee Valley Authority as part of our Tennessee Fuel Center initiative and we're continuing to advance discussions with both previously announced and new customers as we expand our commercial pipeline across data centers, utilities and defense markets. We are also exploring potential fuel offtakes with the Tennessee Valley Authority as part of our Tennessee Fuel Center as well. And financially, we closed the quarter with a strong balance sheet, approximately $1.2 billion in cash and marketable securities with cash burn tracking in line with expectations.

Following the close of the third quarter, we also filed a new shelf registration to maintain flexibility and access to capital markets as we scale. Taken together, these milestones reflect the execution momentum behind Oklo's potential for near-term success, licensing, acceleration, supply chain buildout and commercial traction all living in parallel. This quarter marked a major milestone for Oklo with our selections under the Department of Energy's reactor pilot program. The [ RPT ] was established earlier this year following new executive actions that directed [ UE ] to take a leading role in advancing next-generation reactor deployment as part of the broader U.S. energy renaissance. Nuclear power is a federal priority with strong bipartisan support, reflecting the shared recognition that Advanced Nuclear Energy is essential to meeting America's energy security and economic objectives.

Oklo received 3 of the 11 granted awards, 2 led by Oklo and 1 by our subsidiary, Atomic Alchemy. The awarded projects include [ local ] Aurora INL, our first powerhouse, atomic Alchemy Pilot plant for radioisotope production and Oklo's Pluto, a test reactor supporting advanced fuel and component development. Participation in the reactor pilot program gives us access to a Department of Energy Authorization pathway, aligning our projects with federal review and creating the potential to accelerate construction and operation time lines. Just as importantly, the RPP provides a venue for generating operating data that will help derisk commercial licensing for future powerhouses, strengthening our overall regulatory foundation.

This selection positions Oklo's one of the first advanced reactor companies moving from design to build under DOE oversight, reinforcing that the momentum behind nuclear energy in the United States is broad-based, durable and growing. The DOE's authorization pathway represents one of the most important policy shifts we've seen for advanced reactors in decades, expanding regulatory tools without reducing safety expectations.

For Oklo, it effectively provides a structured approach and process to begin constructing our first powerhouse under DOE oversight while maintaining full alignment with NRC standards. The DOE pathway enables faster demonstration of clean power while maintaining the same rigorous safety expectations and provides an opportunity for a rapid transition to an NRC license for full commercial operation.

Here's what changed. In May, new executive actions established a clear DOE authorization process for first-of-a-kind nuclear plants, a process that now complements rather than replaces traditional NRC licensing. Within months, we moved to qualify our Aurora INL powerhouse under that framework. We expect to finalize our other transaction authority or OTA agreement and have approval of our Nuclear Safety Design Agreement, or NSDA, with the DOE by the end of the year.

So here's how it works. DOE will authorize construction and initial operations under its modernized framework, which allows us to begin building while the longer commercial NRC transition proceeds in parallel. We don't need full operating approvals to finalize construction, which reduces idle time without compromising safety. Once the initial data is collected, the project can then transition to NRC oversight. This approach builds on DOE's decades of experience managing nuclear facilities with an exceptional safety record from naval propulsion to national laboratory programs. It doesn't lower the bar. It simply puts the right reviewers in the right place.

From a broader perspective, this model has the potential to unlock U.S. industrial capacity, strengthen national energy security and create a repeatable template for future advanced reactor deployment. Importantly, DOE and the NRC are complementary, not competitive. Their teams have a long history of collaboration, and we expect continued coordination throughout this process to ensure a smooth handoff when conversion occurs. For investors and customers, this change hopefully means less time line risk, better capital efficiency and earlier validation of cost and performance. The bottom line is that DOE authorization derisks the Aurora INL regulatory path and allows Oklo to focus on building and operating powerhouses while maintaining the same safety rigor and establishing a scalable modern pathway for the next generation of advanced reactors.

As we pursue authorization under the DOE, we're maintaining steady momentum with the NRC to prepare for full commercial licensing. This is a parallel engagement strategy, not competing reviews, but coordinated progress that lets us move faster while maintaining regulatory rigor. Our work with the NRC remains focused on 2 priorities: first, completing ongoing pre-application reviews and topical reports for the Aurora INL and future sites; and second, leveraging data from DOE authorized operations to further inform NRC licensing for the broader commercial fleet.

In practice, this means we'll finalize DOE authorization documentation and begin Aurora INL construction and operations under DOE oversight while continuing NRC pre-application work for follow-on deployments. The learnings from real-world performance data, fuel behavior and operating experience will feed directly into the NRC's combined license process, which we expect could compress the time line from the Aurora INL 2 fleet deployment. We expect to submit licensing actions next year to support construction for subsequent sites, and our goal is to use operating data from the Aurora INL to strengthen each subsequent submission. This strategy ensures that as DOE authorizations advance early construction and operation, the NRC pathway continues in parallel, creating a repeatable data supported model for commercial powerhouse deployment.

We expect the result to be a clear regulatory sequence, build and operate under DOE, then transition to NRC oversight. Acting on lessons learned, we will demonstrate a replicable commercial licensing framework for the next generation of Oklo powerhouses.

Idaho National Laboratory, we've officially broken ground on our first Aurora powerhouse, marking a major milestone in Oklo's transition from design and permitting to active construction. As mentioned, we're progressing under DOE's reactor pilot program, which provides federal oversight and coordination as we move from preparation to build. [indiscernible] has mobilized major equipment to the site and earthworks began October 27 to be followed by controlled blasting in mid-November, targeting full excavation in early January.

For Oklo, this is a defining moment. It represents the shift from planning to physical build with the same discipline and execution framework that will carry through our future projects. This first site establishes the template for our [indiscernible] powerhouses demonstrating our ability to execute as we move toward operations. With construction now underway at INL, we're also making strong progress on the procurement and supply chain front, securing the long lead components and supplier commitments that are scheduled on track. This quarter, we completed major procurements for in-vessel and ex-vessel handling machines primary and intermediate sodium pumps, the reactor trip system and fuel assembly nozzle fabrication.

These are some of the most technically significant systems in the powerhouse and having them under contract early locks in pricing time lines and fabrication slots with qualified vendors. It also demonstrates the maturity of our supply chain, a key differentiator for Oklo, showing that we can sort of put components through proven industrial partners rather than relying on bespoke first-time suppliers. We are procuring these components in a dynamic and continually evolving environment. I mean fluctuating tariffs, supply chain pressures and inflation. These challenges make procurement especially challenging. But our business model and the repeatability of our asset deployment plans will allow us to learn from our experience over time, even if costs are higher or there are other unexpected developments that impact our first few powerhouses. We have the opportunity to iterate and improve as we scale up our operations to ultimately build a reliable and cost-effective supply chain.

It is also worth noting that the future reactor deployments may benefit from a reduction in costs compared to the Aurora INL in part due to the required additional fuel and core testing capabilities. This progress builds real confidence in our ability to execute efficiently and scale repeatedly as we move from this first powerhouse to a broader fleet under the DOE's reactor pilot program and future commercial deployments.

Our wholly owned subsidiary, Atomic Alchemy also achieved a major milestone this quarter with its selection under the Department of Energy's reactor pilot program. The selection makes the Atomic Alchemy pilot facility eligible for DOE authorization, creating a faster pathway to construction and operations. The pilot facility is designed to prove isotope production validate supply chain readiness and derisk the deployment of a larger commercial scale VIPR facility. In the near term, the team is finalizing [ dely ] authorization documentation and advancing site selection and procurement with the intent to be operational by mid-2026.

Over the medium term, Atomic Alchemy will begin at a separate lab scale facility, production and initial isotope sales, creating an early revenue stream while expanding commercial and operational experience. Longer term, the focus shifts to securing an NRC license for full-scale VIPR facility, scaling to multiyear offtake agreements and carrying forward the procedures and quality assurance systems, proven in the pilot facility to streamline future deployment.

What's important here is that Atomic Alchemy isn't just an adjacent business. It's a strategic extension of Oklo's technology platform. The business creates near-term production revenue potential and represents a paradigm shift in an underserved high-potential market. The Atomic Alchemy VIPR Reactor or Versatile isotope production reactor is also quite a bit different than Oklo's Aurora. The VIPR reactor is designed to produce isotopes and therefore produce neutrons. It is an open water cool type reactor that is not pressurized and uses conventional 17x17 pressurized water reactor fuel bundles fueled with LEU at a shortened type. This means the reactors can be built and supplied quickly and produce a variety of isotopes that serve health care, defense and industrial applications. Isotopes are, generally speaking, vastly undersupplied in the U.S. and can play a similar role to critical minerals in terms of national resilience and security.

Our unique and differentiated approach to fuel brings together several complementary sources to cover near, mid- and long-term needs. Near term, we're drawing on DOE materials like [ EBR 2 ] fuel and potentially plutonium-based feedstock to fuel early units. Midterm, our partnerships with Centrus, Hexium and others expand fresh HALEU [indiscernible] and reduce single vendor risk. Longer term, our Tennessee Advanced Fuel Center positions us to recycle and fabricate our own fuel domestically at scale from used fuel inventories. Taken together, this strategy reduces cost and schedule risk strengthens U.S. energy resilience and ensures we can keep building regardless of how the enrichment market evolves.

Fuel remains one of the most important inputs for advanced nuclear power and one of the most complex to forecast right now. The reality is that the cost environment for HALEU and related materials looks very different today than it did in 2024. Tariffs, supply chain constraints, inflation and [indiscernible] sanctions have all changed the market dynamics. The global investment landscape is still shifting and so are the pricing assumptions that come with it.

This is challenging work, and we're owning it. We're building the most resilient, diversified fuel strategy in the sector because we know fuel optionality will determine who scale successfully in the years ahead most quickly. We don't yet know where HALEU costs will ultimately land. But what we do know is that Oklo has more pathway than flexibility than other companies in the space. We'll continue refining our cost models and expect to share more detailed updates next year as the pricing picture becomes clear, but the takeaway today is straightforward. Fuel markets are changing and Oklo is built to adapt, especially in the current fuel environment with additional government materials becoming available to serve as bridge fuel supplies.

We think it's useful to spend a little time eliminating HALEU's supply chains and how they work. The current models in the U.S. and in the world, generally speaking, involve several steps starting with your [indiscernible] mining to then [indiscernible] to then conversion, to the enrichment, to then [indiscernible] conversion and then ultimately to fuel fabrication. Next-generation models might change this significantly. This is one of the reasons why we take a multipronged approach in partnering with HALEU providers, not just to work with those operating today in the supply chains that fit today's models, but also for next-generation technologies that have the potential to have lower capital and operating costs that can simplify the processes and offer value chain consolidation and operate more flexibly, which can all together mean opportunities for lower cost HALEU.

And beyond HALEU, Oklo's also taking a multipronged approach for sourcing fuel both in the near term as well as the long term. We discussed this a little bit already, but there are several major pools of material to think about for fueling our reactors going forward. For one, there are significant government uranium reserves. Some of this material stands in highly enriched form and can be downloaded into fuel for reactors. Some of it might also be in prior or previously irradiated fuel that can be recovered and then produced in the fuel for reactors. That is where we're getting the first 5 tonnes of fuel for our first plant, 5 tonnes to fuel produced from EBR-II fuel that has been recovered and downblended to make fuel suitable for use in our Aurora plan.

An important feature about some of that material is that it carries impurities because it's the time in a reactor. Those impurities do not necessarily make it suitable for all reactors to be able to use it, but our reactor by being a fast reactor and by being designed to be versatile and its fuel can use it. Additionally, the government has significant reserves of plutonium that it is now making available as a bridge source of fuel for commercial power plants. This is significant because the government recently announced up to 20 tons being made available in tranches, that could be made into about 180 metric tons of Aurora fuel. This is a massive bridge supply of fuel that can get us beyond not just our first few plants, but out into our first 10 to 20 plants within an opportunity to scale beyond that with commercial enrichment sourcing as well as recycling.

And the way this works is by taking the plutonium and blending it with unenriched uranium to make a fuel that can be used in our reactors. That negates and avoids the need for any enrichment and can accelerate time to market as well as reduced total capital investments needed to actually produce fuel for our plants. We are exploring the opportunities to use this material given that it can be a significant bridge to future supplies. Those future supplies really comprised of 2 main approaches is how we think about it. There are the conventional enrichers that, in many cases, are already producing LEU and are either actively or exploring expanding production into HALEU as well as advanced enrichers that bring forward different technologies and centrifuges that have unique upside and potential but may, in some cases, stand lower on the technology readiness development spectrum. But these technologies offer opportunities for value chain consolidation, lower cost of production, lower cost of operation and ultimately, the ability to use lower-cost feedstocks. This can ultimately translate to lower cost HALEU at scale as well.

And ultimately, recycling is a key part of our fuel strategy because of how significant it is in unlocking significant reserves of fuel. I use that term duplicity on purpose, significant because it is hard to overstate how much material there is in the U.S. that can be made into fuel. The reason this is the case is because reactors in general, only use a few percent of the fuel in one path. So today's reactors, for example, only use about 5% of the fuel in a single path through the reactor. That means the use fuel that's discharged or often refer to as waste actually has about 95% of its fuel remaining. With our recycling technologies, we can tap into that, pull that material out and reuse it as fuel in our reactors. We can also recycle the fuel from our reactors as well as other advanced reactors that will likely get built. This positions Oklo well to have a long-term, very durable supply of fuel going forward.

Continuing on recycling. One of our biggest advancements this quarter was the announcement of our Advanced Fuel Center in Tennessee, beginning with the fuel recycling facility located at Oakridge. This is the first privately funded recycling facility of its kind in the U.S., representing an investment of up to $1.68 billion in creating more than 800 permanent jobs. In addition to the fuel recycling facility, this investment is expected to include other Oklo assets, such as one or more [ POWERHOUSE's ] and a fuel fabrication facility. The facility has another layer of vertical integration to Oklo's business, enabling us to convert use fuel into new metal fuel for our powerhouses. It strengthens U.S. capability and gives Oklo more supply chain control on our path to scale.

We're tracking towards an initial production ramp-up in the early 2030s with regulatory engagement already underway through the NRC pre-application process. We're also working with the Tennessee Valley Authority on potential collaboration around used nuclear fuel feedstock transfer as well as power generation from are powerhouses. This project isn't just about fuel supply. It's about creating a durable domestic foundation for advanced nuclear power. It anchors Oklo's long-term fuel strategy and positions Tennessee as a national hub for clean energy manufacturing and innovation.

In parallel, there's growing federal support for advanced fuel recycling. Just last week, the Senate Energy and Public Works Committee announced the Nuclear Refuel Act of 2025, which proposes updates to the Atomic Energy Act to provide regulatory clarity for licensing advanced fuel recycling facilities. If enacted, this legislation could further streamline the licensing process for our Tennessee facility.

Building on the momentum from the Tennessee Fuel Center, we were also selected by the Department of Energy for the Advanced Nuclear Fuel Line Pilot Program. This program is designed to accelerate construction and operation of domestic fuel fabrication facilities, strengthening U.S. capability and ensuring that advanced reactors like ours have a reliable long-term supply of fuel. Under this initiative, DOE awarded 3 Oklo led fuel-related projects, allowing us to build and operate facilities that directly support our powerhouse deployments and complement the work underway at our Advanced Fuel Center and Aurora INL fuel fabrication facility.

The Fuel Line Pilot Program nears the intent of the reactor pilot program to create alternative pathways for advanced nuclear deployment that move faster, streamline reviews and leverage private investment alongside federal oversight. For Oklo it does 3 important things. It presents an opportunity to secure near-term fuel for early [ PowerHouses ], producing one of the biggest bottlenecks facing the industry. It reinforces U.S. manufacturing and fuel independence supporting the national effort to rebuild the [indiscernible] nuclear capacity and it stacks directly with our Tennessee facility, creating a vertically integrated ecosystem for recycling and fabrication and deployment.

Together, these programs, the reactor pilot and fuel line pilots form the backbone of a modern U.S. new [indiscernible] strategy. And Oklo's one of the few companies positioned across both with the capabilities to deliver on near-term milestones while building the infrastructure for the long term.

With that, I'll pass it to Craig to share progress on our strategic partnerships and financials. Craig?

Thanks, Jake. As Jake mentioned, Oklo is leading the advanced nuclear effort here in the United States but we are also experiencing growing international momentum around fast reactors and metal fuel technology. This quarter, we signed new transatlantic partnerships with Blykalla and newcleo, 2 European companies advancing fast reactor and fuel fabrication technologies. These collaborations strengthen our supply chain strategies, expand our technology base and align with broader trends across both the United States and Europe for a renewed commitment to nuclear innovation, manufacturing and partnership.

With Blykalla, we entered into a joint technology development agreement to collaborate in key areas where there's mutual benefit such as balance of plant components, regulatory learnings and fuel strategy. We also co-led their recent funding round building across Atlantic partnership that benefits both companies. With newcleo, we've launched a strategic partnership to develop advanced fuel fabrication and manufacturing infrastructure in the United States under domestic oversight. Newcleo could invest up to $2 billion through an affiliated vehicle to expand U.S. capacity and support our metal fuel platform.

Taken together, these collaborations represent the next step in Oklo's evolution and could help us accelerate cost reduction, leverage international capital and extend our reach into markets where demand for advanced nuclear power is growing rapidly. Oklo is combining proven fast reactor technology with a global ecosystem of partners suppliers and investors who are equally focused on delivering scalable, zero-carbon baseload power.

I'll now provide a summary of our financials. Oklo's third quarter operating loss was $36.3 million, inclusive of noncash stock-based compensation expense of $9.1 million. Oklo's loss before income taxes in the third quarter was $29.2 million, which reflects our operating loss adjusted for net interest income of $7.1 million. On a year-to-date basis, when adjusting for noncash stock-based compensation charges, changes to working capital and deferred income tax benefits, the cash used in operating activities equates to $48.7 million. We still expect on a full year basis, our cash used in operating activities to be within our guided range of $65 million to $80 million that we disclosed at the start of this year.

In addition, to build on earlier discussion point in this company update, we have started to make modest capital investments in 2025, which include advancing deployment of activities at INL for our Aurora powerhouse and fuel fabrication facilities as well as for the reactor pilot programs for which we have been selected. The reactor pilot program not only includes work in our power and fuel businesses, but also the award received by Atomic Alchemy. This spin has been enabled by various accelerators we have seen across the business in 2025.

Finally, in the third quarter, we successfully completed an at-the-market fundraising program generating $540 million in gross proceeds, providing the company with additional cash on hand to deliver our enhanced growth agenda. As a result of the capital raise, we ended third quarter with approximately $1.2 billion in cash and marketable securities on our balance sheet.

As we wrap up, I want to connect the key themes you've heard today to what makes Oklo a compelling investment opportunity. We are now executing not theorizing on Advanced Nuclear Power. Our proven fast reactor technology is designed for speed, simplicity and scalability. And our first powerhouse at INL is under construction. We've built a fully integrated fuel strategy that few others can match. From early access to fuel for the Aurora INL powerhouse, to fabrication under the Department of Energy's field line pilots to long-term recycling through our Advanced Fuel Center in Tennessee. We have based our strategy on feedstock integration and multiple long-term fuel cycle delivery pathways that should provide cost stability and supply security as we grow our fleet.

Our radioisotope business has a high-margin adjacent revenue stream that leverages a similar technology base, regulatory pathway, facilities and core competencies to further diversify our earnings potential. And our build-own-operate model creates recurring revenue through long-term power contracts, driving margin visibility and capital efficiency.

Finally, our growing customer pipeline for power spans data centers, defense, utilities and industrials confirmed strong durable demand from what we are building. In short, Oklo is delivering on its plans, proven technology, a differentiated field strategy global partnerships and a business model designed to scale. We're executing today and positioned to lead the next era of clean, reliable energy.

Operator, we are now ready to take questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Ryan Pfingst with B. Riley.

Just want to make sure I'm clear on the DOE authorization. Does the INL plant shifting to the DOE pathway, change your requirement to submit a [ cola ] with the NRC for that project? Or is that something you still have to do? And has the government shut down impacted your ability to do that at all?

Thanks for the question. I think -- so yes, we no longer need to do a [ colo ], right? So we're going through the DOE authorization process, which is inherently quite different. So we don't have to do that anymore. At the end of the day, to build. At the end of the day, we'll still do some kind of combined license type application to the NRC, Part of it is being a little bit redefined and developed based on even just this MOU signed between the NRC and DOE, which was a pretty big deal just last week or the week before. It sets the stage for how the facility would then become a commercial operating NRC license plans at some point after we get through some of the initial startup and operational kind of frame or [indiscernible] paradigm, I should say.

But yes, now it's just through a different DOE process. What's huge about this, is this -- this is a muscle that if you think about it, there's 3 major agencies have, right, to do nuclear authorization on permitting. Obviously, the NRC then the Department of Energy and then the Department of War. And those 3 agencies have those abilities. DOE and DOW haven't really used those very much recently, but they have that history. And so they are like they've used them and they do have continued oversight of the programs, but they're using them now a lot more. And this, by the way, wasn't just something that happened overnight. Like this goes back to the Nuclear Energy Innovation Capabilities Act, NEICA that was passed into law in 2018 that's at the stage of this. It was just following the executive orders that really supercharge this effort. And DOE has really leaned into it, and it's kind of empowered that ability to do these things.

What's cool about it, is it changes the cadence compared to what the NRC had. The industry framework said, you have to do a lot of upfront licensing work before you can build and operate the plant meaningfully. Part of why we're able to break ground and move into meaningful construction is because the DOE process gives you the flexibility to build while you're going through the different steps of basically authorization up until leading fuel and turning it on. And that gives you a lot more flexibility to just move into a build mode and iterate a lot faster. Something that I think is really important and that you see in pretty much every other industry.

So in many ways, it has taken off a huge run of the regulatory risk has changed the paradigm that we can build in parallel and is open the path for a different kind of approach. And remind you, the Department of Energy has a long history of doing regulatory oversight and authorization of setting fast tractors like we're developing, they were the ones that provided the regulatory authorization for EBR-II for [ FFTS ] and continue that oversight into operations. They know how to do this better than probably anybody. So it's a really great kind of fit.

We looked at this pathway as it existed before back in the past but it wasn't in any way modernized. And then since NEICA pass and then following the EOs, it has been, which made a ton of sense then for us to move into that space. Not to mention kind of the enhanced work between the NRC and DOE to obviously leverage this. The interesting thing is, right, DOE reviewers, NRC reviewers as well. They would all also use our national laboratory experts in this country, one of the key kind of things we have in the country. And what's great about that is that actually means that there's going to be residual expertise and experience gained through [indiscernible], are approaching us through DOE that will also help us in the NRC space.

So it's a huge kind of change in many, many positive ways that is going to let us move faster to build and turn on the plant and also then convert over to commercial operations and scale from there. Doesn't take away NRC licensing. It just changes the cadence to kind of accelerate the ability to get something built and get into NRC licensing in the commercial space in a meaningful way, which is really, really accelerative for us.

Got it. Appreciate that detail Jake. And then my second question, I've asked you this one before. But curious if your thinking has changed regarding order conversion from pipeline to more of something firm? And if it's starting to make more sense to try to lock in a PPA with a customer as we get closer to '26, '27 and ultimately, that first plant being built?

Yes. Well, our view has always been find and build the right partnerships and deals with customers and takes time to do that in the most constructive way possible for the company and not necessarily rush into PPA timing but rather build better offtake structures because doing this inherently is not the same exact thing as sort of just doing a power offtake purchase from like a solar project, which is what much of the I would call it legacy conventional PPA structure has been built for. There's a lot of room to be also more creative. And that opens the door to do a lot of things that are important for frankly, derisking a lot of things for us that the off-takers are also incentive aligned to do with us.

So yes, I mean, we've continued to develop customers in the market, and we continue to do that here and that is part of kind of our intentional cadence and strategy to do that. And I think as we work towards what we're executing against we expect to be able to kind of mature those in the places that do make sense for everybody to kind of build a really constructive usual relationship that is part of an offtake agreement that also helps derisk some of the stuff today into that for them, for their power offtake that's pretty powerful. So that's kind of where our focus -- I shouldn't say kind of that is where our focus has been for the last over 12 months or so. And we're continuing on that pace because that's what the market is quite supportive and receptive to and we expect that to continue and position us well so that going into the next year and beyond, we'll start converting those into that kind of -- those kinds of structures as it works.

Each of these different off-takers and groups is going to have different knobs and levers and things to turn that work better for them, respectively, than maybe their peers or competitors. So we got to make sure we were kind of with the right ones that can kind of lean into this in the right ways in cadence and then focus on moving that into the kind of execution phase. So that's how we think about that.

I think 1x factor that's interesting is part of the executive order structure includes the government's ability to be -- and also as we've seen in their policy actions, and I think as we hear about policy actions that are still developing around the AI side of things, enhancing the ability for them to be host and/or even some kind of middlemen or some kind of enabling structure for data center development at DOE sites. So this is still developing and speculative in many ways but there's some interesting potential based on what the EO is put into law, put into executive action that could enable sort of interesting structures too, to expand deployments under the DOE authorization that are providing to the government for their own use cases as they think about critical resource needs and critical capability needs, resource needs, meaning AI and compute needs. So it's kind of cool to see what that might look like, too, which is interesting. So that's probably the biggest shift that a lot of this has opened the door for.

Otherwise, we've continued to work at pace in saying, hey, let's find the most constructive way to work with our customers and ultimately convert them forward based on what -- how we can work together and what we can do to sort of more or less guarantee success in this project in a beneficial way.

Our next question comes from the line of Brian Lee with Goldman Sachs.

This is [ Tyler Bisset ] on for Brian. Wanted to follow up on a prior question. I just wanted to confirm, are you guys still targeting commercial operations at INL to commence between late '27 and early '28 or the shifting to the DOE pathway, accelerate that time line? And it sounds like full activation is targeted for early January. So what are the next sort of milestones we should be watching out for that supports that time line beyond January?

Yes. I mean this is what's really exciting about the reactor pilot program. It opens the door for quite a bit of different ways of doing things and thinking about things in terms of cadencing these milestones. So a couple of big things to pull back. We have 3 pilot programs awarded to us. We talked about those a little bit in earnings. One as you were, I know the other is for the [indiscernible] pilot prototype production reactor. That is on pace for that plant and specifically in place to turn on in June, July of next year, 2026. It's incredible, it's awesome, it's really cool to see how that's progressing. So that's a pretty big set of milestones alone to achieve that. So obviously, we'll continue to update the market as we hit milestones on that front as we execute into that.

Then there's the Pluto reactor, which is basically plutonium fuel testing reactor that will have a continued set of milestones as well. That bridges well into serving both research and development purposes for us to serve that for the government. We announced earlier today partnering with Idaho National Laboratory, the Battelle Energy Alliance about providing fast neutron radiation capabilities. Pluto will kind of expand on that capability set, but that has an incremental set of milestones that will march forward about moving towards basically [indiscernible] driving fuel systems and critical assemblies and test reactors that are happening on a pretty fast time scale as well that we'll continue to update the market over the course of the next 6 -- well, the next 3, 6, 9, 12 months out.

And then back to part of where your question was on the Aurora INL plant. The authorization path that's important here it allows us to move into the construction activity much more quickly, so we can start building the plant. We broke ground in September. We're moving into major excavation work here coming up shortly and then moving through the full-scale procurement and activities as we speak, including something we've already done, so we're ramping forward into. That is going to be pretty important for us to be able to turn that plant on. We are still targeting in the '27, '28 time lines for that plant to commence operations to turn on and go. There are some things that might be accelerative to benefit that but some of that can also just help take out or accommodate some slack and other things in the system. It's just important that you can move fully into the build stage so that you can move through these things more iteratively.

And then on top of that, the key thing that's enabling all of this is the ability to actually like fabricate fuel to put into these reactors. And that's a critical part of the supply chain that we've been focused on for a very long time. And with the reactor pilot program and then the associated fuel pilot program allows us to move into. And as we talked about and we announced earlier today, we see some pretty sizable milestones there in a really compressed time window and illuminate objectively how clearly beneficial these things are for us.

We are building a fuel fabrication facility to make fuel for Aurora plant in Idaho, where you can partner with the government, we're using existing building in Idaho National Laboratory to do that. That building needs to have some refurbishment and then have equipment go into it. That building going through the traditional kind of legacy DOE because it's the DOE facility. DOE authorization path before the executive orders, we were moving at a pace that was in the order of like 2 years to kind of get close to a milestone that then when we reset the process under the pilot program, starting from 0 there. Grant, we had some work done so we can kind of copy-paste over that, but we moved in 2 weeks to hit this significant milestone that is now allowing us to actually do the construction work there and sell equipment and fabricate fuel much more quickly.

So there's clear benefits that we're seeing that we are going to be in pace to have things moving faster and be able to deploy in term at plant on. I will caveat that, that plant in Idaho, it is not going to be selling commercial power to the grid under the authorization. That's not what is intent is. You might be able to do some work selling into not just power, but a radiation services to the lab complex and the Department of Energy as part of the authorization. But the point is we get this built more quickly, get the initial operational experiences and everything else, and then we can take that path over to the NRC. And as indicated by the expanded MOU, signed the MOU signed by DOE and NRC just in the last week or 2, they made it clear that the NRC is going to build on the DOE work for that. So we expect -- look, there's some new work, obviously, to do that kind of thing, but it's supportive that they're already getting in front of that. Part of why they're looking at that as to build off the success that we can do under the DOE.

And again, the feature DOE have compared to the NRC. The NRC has been doing a lot of work to get ready to the license advanced reactors. DOE has been licensing in tractors for a long time. So they already have those muscles internally, now they're just using them a little bit differently, externally, and that's hugely beneficial because then NRC going to be able to build off on reference testing. So it kind of keeps the same pace and cadence of operations for what we're trying to do for the Aurora plant but opens the door for accelerated milestones on that. And then additional accelerated milestones for other things going on.

Awesome. Super helpful. And then really appreciate the incremental details around the 20 tons of plutonium reserves potentially being made into 180 tons of Aurora fuel. Can you help me understand what underpins that conversion math or your assumptions because that was a lot more than what we were estimating. And then is this an opportunity for your fuel recycling facility? Or would processing this material require a separate NRC license facility? Because it sounds like that fuel source could accelerate your deployment schedule.

So one of the things that we got -- I love that question for so many reasons. And I'm sure some folks are probably going to be a little nervous going to spend the whole time getting into the technical details, which I'll try not to because [indiscernible] a pre-recorded practice sessions we were thinking about getting really, really deep on all this. Let me rephrase that. I was just doing that because this is one of my favorite things technically.

So to answer your question, Yes. So the key thing about plutonium right, is it's an incredibly useful fissile material as a fuel source. In other words, if you think about HALEU is 19, it's up to 20% less than 20% rich [indiscernible] the balance here in [ 2028 ]. And the fast reactor, pretty much all the [ isotopimplitonium ], but especially the stuffing available, which is mostly [ 239 ] with some [indiscernible] [ 40 and 41 ] in there. But that material, it's a great bridge fuel because it can be a direct replacement for the [ U-235 ] without needing any enrichment right [indiscernible].

So you blended in with uranium. And in our case, you have in zirconium obviously making toll-fuel, but you just blended [indiscernible] with uranium to make a HALEU equivalent [indiscernible]. Now the thing about plutonium is it's an even better fuel than uranium. So you need less of it to get commensurate performance. So on average, and it depends by the variations in flavors in the fuel, but on average, if you basically it's about 11-or-so percent equivalent. So about 11% or so plutonium is equivalent in our reactors and behavior and performance to about 19 -- just under 20% [indiscernible] uranium. So that's where that conversion in math comes from. So that's why it's such a potent fuel form, so to speak.

So that's pretty cool. That's obviously very accelerated for a lot of things. And for that facility, that's one of the things that was encompassed in the pilot program, the fuel pilot program awards and being able to do that kind of work there. at an initial stage on initial scale. So it may, at the end of the day, convert over to a larger scale kind of commercially licensed facility, but to get through some of the initial sources of that material and initial supplies, assuming that that's fully made available and we have access to [indiscernible] on that, then we have the DOE fuel pilot program selections to support that.

It's hard to overstate the significance of the government moving this material away from a $20-plus billion taxpayer funded liability to bury it literally mix it with [indiscernible] sand and burying the desert in New Mexico versus making it available to be a bridge fuel for the advanced reactor industry. And completely changes the [indiscernible] where you knew longer or feel constrained because of that. It's huge, and what's significant about that, obviously, is not just that you can build more reactors sooner but that means you can scale more powerful and significant orders to the enrichment market as well as what we're doing on the recycling side. It's incredible. It is absolutely incredible.

So for me, like that was one of the most exciting things to have happened this year because of what that catalyzes for building more things sooner without like having to be dependent on other factors. And then instead using that basically the ability to build more plants to convert to more fuel orders to then help scale that fuel supply side more quickly. So for a long time at Oklo, we've been working to advocate for government bridge fuel supplies as a key enabler to kick start the commercial fuel supply chain. And I think we're seeing that really take root and open the doors for that to move in a totally different way.

Yes, seriously. It's a really, really significant policy move to enabling the deployment of more nuclear power quickly, more quickly.

And I'll just add one little piece for that. Like not all reactors and fuel fabrication approaches and benefit from plutonium the same. It has different characteristics to it. We just know it works really well in fast tractors because we spend a lot of time developing and researching it for that. So that obviously is part of the benefit of fast reactors and their ability to be quite fuel-agnostic and feel flexible.

Your next question is from the line of Vikram Bagri with Citi.

It's Ted. I wanted to ask about the Pluto test reactor. So it looks like it's going to be deployed after the first reactor at INL. Is this going to be the template for all the future reactors? And what are the differences to Aurora? Is it only that it's going to be run on plutonium? Should we also assume a 75-megawatt size for it? And then just lastly, what are the main learnings that you hope to obtain from this test reactor?

Yes. It's a great set of questions. So basically, it's a little bit different as bespoke to enable the accelerated sort of fast neutron radiation testing capabilities at a system like that can afford. That's important for a couple of reasons. Like part of what we've talked about is at the company right? If you think about what Oklo does, obviously, the reactor part is what people focus a lot on. We sell power, we sell heat. We have these other parts of the business that we had to build to deliver into that [indiscernible] fabrication, which will help us, obviously, make fuel for our reactors, potentially for others, too, which is part of what some of the investments in partnerships, which we announced this quarter touched on.

Additionally, we talked about recycling, which is great because we can make fuel for ourselves as well as potentially for others and sell various materials and isotopes coproducts from that as well as possibly recycling services, all great. And then obviously, the isotype side of the business, which is specifically focused on that.

Part of the reactor part of the story, though, and also somewhat ties over to the isotope side is we are a fast tractor, we use fast. We make fast [indiscernible]. We will have [indiscernible] terms to help test and characterize materials and fuels. That is not a capability that we've had in this country in 30-plus years. And it's not a capability that the Western world has had in a similar time frame, so like in 20 years or so. So it's an important thing that we're bringing to bear. The government set forward on building a big dedicated test reactor, but it was a government program. So it actually had a lot of sort of challenges around it.

What we're doing with Aurora plant and our ability to do that and therefore, also offer that as a potential revenue-generating aspect of the company, which is hey, we have [indiscernible], we can provide rate-easing capabilities, not just for our own use but for others as well as what we're doing on the Pluto side, which expands that and gives us that cadence of experience in a plutonium-based system is pretty accelerative to opening the door for moving into better deals and different materials and expanding the fuel performance envelope so that we can maximize what we do.

We're in a good spot to be able to build and operate, that's great, but there is going to be so much more we can get out of these materials with more end fuels in terms of timing the reactor and just ultimately better economic performance with more data that we can generate using us. So that was part of the incipient to look at doing the Pluto test reactor. It's a smaller system. It's not producing electric power. It's a primary job. I mean as of now, its primary job is focused on making fast neutron. And it's a culmination of activity so I think of it more as a program than just a single reactor that will involve taking simpleton critical, getting some experience doing that with our national lab partners, doing some work around the [indiscernible] handling and management and then moving that into obviously the full scale like Pluto reactor.

The reactor will be smaller in its power production and will also be optimized these plutonium. These plutonium is inherently in the nuclear space, higher worth to use that terminology fuel means we can actually use less overall fuel if we concentrate up the plutonium a bit more, which is what generally speaking process reactors have done. So that means we can kind of use a higher loading of plutonium total less -- total fuel mass, get more thermal power out of it, and therefore, more neutrons to test things with it. And it's a pretty favorable thing to do with that. But the system will give us a very significant amount of repetition about doing the actual work around plutonium fuel fabrication going forward.

The fuel will look, generally speaking, very similar to the Aurora fuel, if we use plutonium in it. In terms of form factor and pipe, it would just use a lower amount of plutonium in it because we have -- what we're designing to in the oral plan is going to be interchangeable between HALEU, [indiscernible] fuel and transgenic [indiscernible] fuel. And that means you kind of dilute the plutonium more compared to what Pluto will do.

When you think about Pluto as a program, it's the cadence to build on top of the fuel [indiscernible] fuel fabrication piece in physical plutonium-reactor part. So over the course of the next year, we're gaining experience with plutonium criticality and work around that. and then we'll move that into the next up of actually building the plants going forward. Those are high-level kind of perspectives on where it goes, but it's a pretty significant enabler for getting those repetitions in our belt and start fueling Aurora plants with plutonium bearing fuel.

Now just to put a number on this, like the thing that's really powerful about moving in this space, like building out these fast neutron radiation capabilities, yes, it opens the door to do additional things for radiation services. You tend to do some additional isotope production using different material types. And yes, it's important because it helps us with ourselves as well as other companies can come to us or government programs should come to us and either rent or buy radiation type time, radiation time or similar types of kind of exposure in the environment to help bring some materials that are quite mature, but need a little bit more to go over the finish line that are inherently basically economically better than what we have to use based on what the experiences are today.

Those are still great because we can make that work. But that looks -- this is a platform for R&D and margin improvement. There's one way to think about it. So anyway, that's kind of the cadence of how we see things.

Got it. That's super helpful. And then I just had one follow-up. On Slide 9, it mentions the breakdown of CapEx by components. And I think it's lifted by number of components. Are you able to share just directionally what that is in dollar terms?

Yes. I mean, I guess I'll kind of hand this over for Craig, if you want to kind of answer some of it, and then I can chime in.

Yes. So I think directionally, we would expect the dollars to be similar to the components. In terms of an actual dollar breakdown, we're still refining a lot of our cost estimates now that we've got [indiscernible] onboard and now that we're deepening some of our procurement activities, and we'll probably have more to share on that going probably into 2026.

Our next question comes from the line of Jed Dorsheimer with William Blair.

I guess first, I don't know if Jake want this or Craig, but just if you could talk a little bit about backlog. I think it was 14 gigawatts, has that changed at all? And maybe just a little bit of color on the discussions that you're having. Is it mostly utility? Is it mostly hyperscaler? Just that breakdown, if you would. And then I have a follow-up.

Yes. Jed, I can take that. So I'd say the 14 gigawatts is still predominantly made up of data center and hyperscaler customers. I think I mentioned to you last time we were on the phone. We've also got other potential customers in the mix that aren't identified customers as part of that 14 gigawatts that could maybe even cause that number to go up. I know the bigger question is, when do you convert that into a PPA. And I'd say we are [indiscernible] on that, with pace and urgency and actively exchanging term sheets. I never want to promise an exact date on when we might announce something because it takes Oklo to be on the same page with the customer. But I'm really pleased with kind of how those commercial discussions are progressing.

And not just on the PPA price, but I think we're also seeing good traction on -- similar to what we were able to achieve with [ Equinix ], which was a prepayment for power. We're also progressing conversations with customers that could convert into prepayment for power or prepayment for fuel or some other asset-oriented contribution to the deal itself.

Got it. That's helpful. Just along those lines, the discussions does as Atomic Alchemy in having that standing up a fueling recycling, even if that's in the future, has that kind of moved some of those discussions along from a supply chain risk? And -- sorry yes, that's...

Well, I would say Atomic Alchemy is probably -- the types of conversations we're having around feedstock for isotope production taking customer discussions into contract conversion. The steps are the same, but it's definitely with different counterparties on both the feedstock side, the supplier vendor side and all of that. But I think we are excited around the tremendous progress that the team is making around the reactor pilot program that Atomic Alchemy was awarded. And in addition, we're also making good progress on the lab scale facility that will be down the road at INL. And I think, as I've said earlier, there is the possibility for the lab scale project that we could be generating revenue and gross margin. It's going to be in the single million dollars, not anything bigger than that, and it won't be exactly ratable. But we're excited about what we might be able to do to actually turn some of that -- the lab scale facility, especially in the gross margin in the first half of next year.

Got it. And then just one for Jake. If I just look at using an EBR for isotope production and isolation, do we need to wait until you get the VIPR up for sort of an [indiscernible] tailoring? Or can that be done in between? I ask because [indiscernible] is really well suited for cobalt and Lutetium, which are being used for sort of the radioisotope or radiopharma market right now? And just curious on the EBR side, whether or not you need that tailored reactor before you can do that or if there's an in-between?

Yes, it's a good question. I mean there's a couple of steps actually to parse that out. So one, there are some things we can do in the near term without a reactor in terms of isotope sort of consolidation and recovery that we are making progress we talked about any update towards in Idaho, where you'll be able to actually have infrastructure and facility capabilities to actually do some of that work and start producing some of the isotopes from those kinds of sources.

But for sort of the most meaningful, and that's great because we get some practice repetition, maybe help accelerate revenue which is cool. But at the end of the day, it helps position us with experience to then move into the next stage, which is where the reactors really unlock significant differentials in performance. And yes, [indiscernible] do that. They're also not in the U.S. And there's a pretty important focus on these production capabilities being in the U.S., not even in our nearest neighbors, right? And so -- and [indiscernible] limited. They can do some things pretty well but they can do everything very well. And the [indiscernible] production reactor design is designed to do pretty much most everything pretty well that you can do with thermal neutron key caveat.

So the nice thing about that reactor is we'll have its prototype up running by the middle of next year. It uses standard pressurized water reactor fuel bundles that are just shorten in height at commercial scale. And that's often instilled with LEU. And it's part of what we were drawn to with this business was it wasn't trying to design because some of the margins and the numbers that these radios isotopes bringing to you. Have drawn some folks in the field to look at really exotic reactors because you can pay for it because of that. So you kind of build like a Formula 1 custom reactor to produce these isotopes when maybe all you need is like a [ 4 to 50-year ] something, something to that. It doesn't have to go quite as fast or be quite as exotic and therefore, way cheaper and easier to build. And that was one of the things that really attracted us to Atomic Alchemy, is we were working with them. So that's one of the features here is what that will enable.

But then there's the other part, which is some isotope, really I would say you best produce, if not uniquely produce in a fast spectrum environment, you need fast neutrons to really do that. And that's where being able to harvest some of the fast neutrons in our fast reactors will unlock those capabilities pretty attractively and then tie that in to the Atomic Alchemy kind of sales channels and global productization and sales channels. And that's a pretty cool feature set that we'll be able to have.

If you look back in the analyst history, the [indiscernible] facility, one of the reactors from which we derive our legacy as a reactor that our Chief Technology Officer has been Chief Technology Officer, spent a lot of time at had quite cool set up to do a bunch of fast neutron like isotope production work, like a ton and pretty attractive economics to go with it. And that was in a somewhat constrained way of thinking about it. And then on top of that, the Russians have been significant players in the isotope market at a global scale because they've been using our fast neutron capabilities to do that, too. So it's a pretty significant game changer that does diversify away from capabilities that you can't do with just thermal [indiscernible] reactors. But at the end of the day, those are pretty important things.

One other thing I'll just throw out that we've talked a little bit about, but it's important to kind of illuminate to go back to the VIPR reactor, one of the things that's designed for is also being able to do silicon radiation which is, generally speaking, the or one of the gold standards for achieving silicon doping right? If you do phosphorus like type vapor deposition or infusion, it's kind of limited in wafer thicknesses and other things like that. Neutrons permeate the material much more uniformly and will then transmute and make that phosphor [indiscernible] happened naturally, and it's a pretty attractive thing. That capability used to be used when it existed in the way because the ability to do that radiation kind of on the way.

So we're also -- that's one of the cool things about VIPR, it could do stuff like that too, right? So a lot of flexibility that you couldn't otherwise do without a system design that be versatile in nature.

Your next question comes from the line of Jeffrey Campbell with Seaport Research.

Congratulations on all the progress. I hadn't planned this one, but I found the last discussion brief as many. So Jake, let me just ask, when you get around to trying to do isotope radiation with an Aurora, are you going to be able to do it in a way that won't interrupt your fuel cycle? You mentioned the Russian reactors, it has kind of a peculiar fuel cycle that allows it to go in periodically and do the irradiation. And of course, they can't do it without any interruption. But typically, reactors have to match their refueling cycle with their radiation. So I'm just wondering if you think about that?

Yes, it's a great question. By and large, like the focus of those reactors is really power production, but some of the flexibility that will be afforded to us by, for example, the word, Idaho as well as the Pluto reactors will give us a lot more flexibility to do more work around those things. So think of it more as imagine some like 4 normal commercial optics, we want to harvest on those neutrons because it makes sense we're going to have to fit it into the power cadence because that's the primary driver. But we'll have some flexibility and some other reactors that will give us more flexibility to kind of match that accordingly because we're going to be doing other testing work.

So there's going to be some interesting planning in coordination like it is for other test reactor or radiation and test reactors to sort of optimize to that and do the trade-offs. But generally speaking, yes, for the vast majority of the focus, if we're going to use any of their fast neutron capacity, would be largely skewed towards minimizing, if not completely avoiding interference on the power operation schedule, while there will be a couple that we'll have more flexibility that we can kind of optimize to on the isotope side if it makes sense to do so.

So it's kind of one of those acknowledgments of yes, we're going to have to look at possibly parsing some of the asset operation schedules, if it makes sense to do, and that's the key question is if it makes sense to do.

Okay. Yes, that makes sense. The other question I wanted to ask you is, if you could give us any update on your proposed natural gas or Aurora partnership with Liberty Energy. Liberty has recently spoken about it at a high level, and they seem to indicate they've been aimed towards large projects. I wondered if there's been any diminished appetite on Oklo side as its progression to Aurora construction has accelerated?

Yes. I think in general, we still see it as a pretty powerful bridge. I think we've seen now several other groups be talking at a broad thematic about the gas to nuclear [ camo ] and bridging capabilities and features that offers. So we continue to see that as a positive thing in different customer discussions. I think what we see in general though, and this is a bit anecdotal. So take it for that. But I think some of the near-term focus and priorities at the moment is around utilizing stuff that's basically on grid to be the nearest term operation will kind of preference, where that will be a key enabler for getting some stuff built or powering [indiscernible] already being built and filling in the power to either meet additionality goals or other kind of feature sets that this can do.

And then that is in parallel happening, but just the temporal nature of the project planning isn't kind of followed by the benefits of being able to bring gas into enable power at a site for either a colocation or near location or even behind the meter approach that gas [ Canadian ] will pretty successfully.

So I mean it's still a pretty powerful feature in market conversations and discussions. But I think at the end of the day, like I don't think there's much diminishment on it. I think if anything there's a lot of validation that it's valuable and it's a future and it continues to kind of evolve and progress.

One of the challenges I think we see in the commercial markets. I don't know if you call it a challenge, but one of the things we've observed is a lot of focus on the hyperscalers has been on the energy objectives they have over the next -- on multi-month scale time frames, right? Maybe that [indiscernible] to 24 months or less but like stats where they're obviously really, really focusing most of their activities is making sure they're in a good position for all of what they need them. And they're increasingly looking at the longer-term views, just given how constrained the power markets are as a whole, realizing they need to expand those horizons and that systematically continue to see evolve and gas as an ability to bring power to a facility or site sooner is pretty powerful.

I still think -- I'll say that I still think that the understanding of the benefits that making fuel government fuel availability, like was it increasing government fuel availability like the plutonium side, which can be quite accelerative to building new [indiscernible] plants faster and more plants fasters. It's still being digested in the market. So like that may have an ability to help show a path to bringing nucleon even sooner, and that's, I think, pretty potent. And I think it's still very early innings for folks understanding of what that means given the nature of it's still pretty fresh.

Yes, that makes sense. But at least I wasn't completely irrational. So I appreciate the color.

Your next question comes from the line of Derek Soderberg with Cantor Fitzgerald.

Just one question for me. Is there a level of prepayments you need to make to secure some of these long lead time items in either the nuclear, nonnuclear supply chain? And wondering if you can quantify how much capital it will require to just ensure access to those long lead time items as you scale?

I can take that one. So like we're currently working on progressing I don't want to mention the vendor specifically, but some of the other supply chain partnerships we've already announced, and there might be some form of a prepayment, but it's in the -- it's in that 10% range. So it's a number, but it's not significant. And I think one of the reasons, though, that we're so glad about the success we've had around the capital raise is that we can -- we don't need to have capital be a constraint that if we find an opportunity and it makes sense in terms of the returns to do a prepayment because we can get a better price point on the asset, then we can go forth and do that.

Your next question is from the line of Sherif Elmaghrabi with BTIG.

Just a 2-parter on the fuel line pilot at INL. Do you have a target online date? And then the facility was also selected for a DOE program, which you mentioned. And I'm wondering if there's an economic opportunity there as soon as the facility comes online or if that's also something that needs NRC approval to monetize?

Yes. So I just want to understand the Aurora plant, so that is going through DOE authorization to get built and turned on initially and get through some of the initial operational cycles. And then the intent is to move that over into a commercially operating space. I will flag like moving that over to [indiscernible] license is the most likely path. It's not impossible, though, that given some of the dynamics of what's happening on the DOE side that there might be pathways to kind of sell into the government that could exist. We're not planning that that's exactly where it is, but that is something that has been and it was in the EOs and that might be something that does evolve, but the plan is to convert that over to a [indiscernible] that experience you gained. Were sitting to the day is great because you point to real data with the real plant and just move some of that stuff pretty constructively forward.

The Atomic Alchemy plant in Texas, the intent we have on there is to primarily be serving where DOE is. It's not impossible that we go convert it over to a license as well. There's some optionality potentially there. But the general view is keep the DOE facility get the experience of living running it, giving some radiation work, provide them some support to DOE emissions and possibly opening the door for other things. But at the end of the day, that's kind of how we see that and that similarly is kind of how we think about the Pluto reactor as well.

Again, it's possible that there's a feature set to convert many of these facilities or convert these to energy license, all of them to energy licenses, that's a possibility, but the general [indiscernible] is we kind of see the Aurora now being the one that would make the most sense to do that with the other 2, not necessarily, but it depends on some factors that may evolve.

One other thing I'll flag is coming out of the executive orders, one of the things that's mentioned and clearly defined in there, just to highlight is the fact that DOE authorization or DOE authorized facilities can support and provide clinical product right? Whether that be power or heat or isotypes, or whatever it is, to the Department of Energy use cases, that can then by how these things are defined can be and proceed and be built like -- sorry, things that do that work can be under basically authorized under DOE authorization. And that could mean, for example, we are in a position where we build more plants under DOE authorization because they're serving DOE. So that could be something that also occurs. There's nothing firm on that, but just given that the EOs put that out there and it does open the door for the possibilities that, that might be something else.

The nice thing and the key thing here that's so important for why we felt confident and excited to move in this pathway that's accelerative is because it's clear that the understating view, we are working well together and working together to, I would say, be efficient in how work done by one will be complementarily kind of informative to the other. And that's an important kind of capability set. And again, that's evidenced pretty clearly by the recent MOU between DOE and NRC which is supportive of the fact that getting DOE authorization and going through the technical work to do that will be constructive in NRC either licensing in version and or, I should say, really and future NRC license applications for future commercial plans.

And our final question comes from the line of Craig Shere with Tuohy Brothers.

What are the prospects for rounding up remaining fuel needs to maximize your made in INL powerhouse to 75 megawatts? And if you don't have it upfront as you commence operations, the later get NRC approval and can commence full commercial sales. At that time, could you refuel to maximum capacity?

Yes. Although given the recent activities and traction around a multitude of kind of fuel policy arrangements as well as what we're seeing in the commercial fuel supply markets. I think we feel increasingly confident that we'll be able to have the fuel needed to run that facility if not immediately at the onset and full power pretty close to the immediate onset of full power. Not that this is the plan because we feel, again, increasing confidence that there's going to be extra HALEU that we can use for that facility from actually a variety of sources, which is the diversity sources as part of the confidence the inspiration of the company.

The other part of it is we can in that reactor if we needed if we were able to get, for example, access to some of that plutonium piece stock, make that into fuel that could be located in commingled with the reactor fuel there. It just means some assemblies would have sound-bearing fuel, some would just be [indiscernible] fuel and you can design it to work just fine in that configuration manner. And given that, that material exists in a pretty much ready to fabricate form, it gives us a lot of confidence in how that can actually kind of proceed. So that's how we see that kind of playing out.

Great. And last for me. To the degree you start employing, which sounds like a great opportunity, this plutonium mix to help bridge quicker plant deployments. Does that have any implications on NRC regulatory process? Do they have to shift because of the new fuel mix and having some plutonium in there? Does that have any proliferation concerns of any kind?

Yes, it's a great good question. There are some inherent things that are a little different. To go back in the history of this plutonium kind of its legacy and policy history. The President's executive orders directed 34 tonnes that was slated for diluted disposed to be made available for reactors [indiscernible]. Before the program of diluted disposed, which is are we going to spend $20-plus billion of tax rate money to just blend the stuff up to [indiscernible] sand and bury it. The program before that was actually fabricated into fuel as part of a joint treaty with Russia at the time for stockpile reduction. And the plan was to take that material fabricated into fuel for light water reactors and then use one reactor what was called the [ MAX ] program and the facility in South Carolina to do that.

That program -- you could spend a long time and for time sake, I'll keep it very simple and a little bit simplistic. That program had significant struggles because plutonium fuel and light water reactors while very doable is inherently something very different than what we do as a country here. So the infrastructure to do all that wasn't necessarily in place because plutonium does behave notably differently in a slow neutron reactor than a fast reactor. It's still behave differently the uranium and the fast reactor, but the difference is more amplified and accentuated in the thermal spectrum or slow neutron reactor, especially water cooled reactor.

And it wasn't something the utilities were really one thing. Fuel markets were not constrained. It was not something that there was a market for. And it was a [indiscernible] government run approach where the facility got way out of controlling costs and everything else because it wasn't mainly driven by a kind of a more, I would say, entrepreneurial or enterprising kind of dynamic.

So the recommended options, the best path coming out of that program basically not being in a spot to not proceed was to actually the technical analysts were to say, okay, the best thing would be to put it in fats factors. But we don't have any fast reactors. So the next best option is just to dilute and dispose it. Well, now we're going to have fast reactors, right, based on what we're doing. So our view is, hey, this is great because [indiscernible], there are other companies developing reactors and other things that can use this material, and there is a fuel crunch. So now we're in a different world or how they think about that.

That facility that I talked about under the light water [ MAX ] program was actually going through and have gone through a -- like all of that was set up to be under NRC per view, generally speaking. And so there's a lot of infrastructure in place and experience around that. So there are some differences with things you need to do on the regulatory side for this. But it's not -- it's generally speaking pretty well known. But what's really powerful too, is that DOE spending kind of with the [indiscernible] program to include the fuel pilot program to help fuel these reactors under the pilot program. They also are sending their authorization capabilities, and they are the ones that already oversee from a [indiscernible] and authorization perspective [indiscernible] work. So it's great to be able to kind of tie in with that. And we've been expanding our partnerships with some of the national labs who have experience doing all that work. So it kind of helps us drive and build out that expertise set in partnership with the experts that we have in this country and kind of accordingly kind of be able to scale that forward.

So that's like -- that's how this core sort of charts. I've got some things that are a little bit different than the earnings side, but nothing significantly departed and stuff that's largely like noble manageable. I mean again, there's controls and elements to it. But generally speaking, this is -- this has a history and [indiscernible] behind it in a multitude of way between DOE and NRC.

Where there is -- and to your other part of the question, where there is kind of an exciting opportunity around this, is the story in the conversation around proliferation. And I say that because the kind of only way to permanently destroy plutonium out of this universally sufficient. So by putting it in the reactors, you're visioning it and you're trying to get into 2 [ fission ] products that like stars have a really hard time synthesizing through Super Novas and to back into plutonium. So that's a [indiscernible] way of saying like this is a pretty good way to get rid of it and generate power in doing so and solve a fuel crunch while doing so.

So if anything, our view is pretty strongly is you obviously apply all the relevant state-of-the-art. And this is something we've leaned into because of our work and recycling in other fields. Applying state-of-the-art capabilities on safeguards and security around managing this material from receipt into fabrication and then into reactors and then in the reactors you're just [indiscernible] in it. So it's actually a pretty cool setup and something that as a country we were due to do. There are some, I would say, predicts out there, mostly just pretty clear antinuclear. [ ADVOCATE ] to have said, "Oh, this is a [indiscernible] concern." I've never understood that because destroying plutonium I think is the best way to get rid of it. Isn't objectively the best way to get rid of it. So yes, it's just a pretty elegant solution to actually get rid of the material.

I think what it really distill that was just like, oh, this is different, and then it's just change. It takes a little bit of time [indiscernible] and people like makes a lot of sense. The other concern is like well, we'll incentivize other countries to do the same, which I would also argue, well, I think if we incentivize other counties to destroy their plutonium that's also kind of a feature in the [indiscernible] world. So not necessarily the worst thing on that front.

And then I think what's important, too, is this is legacy material from [ weapons ] program. As we think about the future and recycling, you're not separating out pure plutonium using state-of-the-art technology, which again gets back to how I think at a policy level, we should be thinking about leading in the world stage. If we, as a country, are as what we announced in Tennessee, recycling material in a manner that does not ever produce pure separated plutonium instead produces uranium transuranic mix that's [indiscernible]. That's that's a good spot to kind of lead from. And so that's kind of how I think about the space.

And with no further questions in queue. I will now hand the call back over to Jake Dewitte, CEO and Co-Founder of Oklo. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Thank you all for joining in today. We appreciate it. There's -- this is the second call since the executive orders were signed. The first call since we had the reactor pilot program and fuel pilot program selection. So it has significantly changed how we think about the regulatory landscape and the regulatory strategy we're employing accordingly.

It's significant in its accelerated features but also in its regulatory derisking features. This aligns pretty well with what we're also seeing in the policy landscape driving sort of a continued focus and effort on modernization not just the Department of Energy, but the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Our work with the NRC has not stopped. It still continues. But now it gets the benefit and the accelerating benefit of working with the Department of Energy and the National Laboratory ecosystem that supports this, that will help NRC reviews and generally seeking, enable a world where NRC reviews will be accelerated and made more efficient and generally speaking, improved by the experience is already done by the DOE.

DOE have a tremendous track record of safely authorizing and reviewing and overseeing nuclear facilities. And the NRC and DOE, don't forget were born from the same entity, the Atomic Energy Commission. And so there's a lot of kind of common threads. They worked together for a long time, and we're happy to see that, that's kind of continuing and in some ways, they're even getting closer again to work together. And I mean that in a constructively independent way where NRC can use DOE's best resources and information because one of the best ways you can do safety analysis and safety oversight is good understanding of what the system is you're overseeing and leveraging our nation's leadership, technically speaking, that the DOE has, the national labs have to help support that. It's a pretty powerful combination.

So I like to think that we're now kind of moving into this next chapter of this new wave of nuclear that's leveraging the best features of government to its maximum ability and that's a benefit for all of us. Additionally, the opportunities around making more fuel sources available. For example, this plutonium material as well as continued traction and efforts to stand, to build out and invest in and expand the uranium's fuel supply chain are pretty accelerative because the bridge fuel opportunities that the plutonium gives us is a game changer and building more reactors more quickly and using that to help accelerate the investment and development of the uranium enrichment market.

Uranium enrichment is radically undersupplied in this country, practically meaning like 18%, 20%. We need more of it for just our existing plants. And we also needed, of course, where we're making less than 1 time a year, but for HALEU. And so things we can do to help signal more powerful optics orders and investments and therefore, expansion in the HALEU side, supported by building more reactors sooner using bridge fuel is pretty accretive to realizing more fuel supplies and to use maybe a bit of a silly term, dual leadership in [indiscernible] because back in the 1980s, we as a country, had more fuel production capacity, meaning conversion enrichment, de-conversion fabrication in the rest of the world combined. And now we definitely don't. So a big opportunity for how that's proceeding. And bridge fuels are a really important piece of that.

And then on the reactor front, one of the great things about the pilot program and the benefits there is an ability to move into building a big thing that we have long thought from policy would be very supportive of nuclear is to move the front-loaded paperwork to be developed largely or largely as in parallel as possible with the actual building of facilities so that you can do the kind of learning of building while you do the regulatory work so that you know what you're building on to and you know what your licensing. But also you can have a build and then you get the final authorization before you actually load the fuel and actually run the plant. And the DOE pathways allow us to do that. So we can accelerate time lines. And it's bringing forward an ability to start going from -- going from greenfield and the design of a reactor to turning reactors on. And what looks like it's going to be less than 12 months for at least what we're doing on the Atomic Alchemy side as well as some other companies that are pursuing this that were selected under the program.

That's as someone said recently, kind of Manhattan project level speed of being able to do these things. And that's a real feature to moving all of this excitement and enthusiasm into real-world application and the iterations that come from being able to build and build more quickly. So this is a bit of a dream set of scenarios that I think [ Carolyn ] and I long dreamed about when we were starting the company, and it's all coming together in a very, very accretive time for us, not just to be positioned to take advantage of it because of where we are as a company and the maturity we have but also the resources we have to bring to bear to it. So we're very excited that we are selected for 3 of those reactor pilot programs as well as the fuel line programs and executing on that as we also scale forward with additional customer development and future sites and deployment opportunities.

So thank you all.

Thank you again for joining us today. This does conclude today's conference call. You may now disconnect.