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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.