OKLO went from $20.34 to $96.59 between December 2024 and December 2025. Oklo Inc, trading under ticker OKLO, is a nuclear startup that delivered 4x returns building reactors that fit in a backyard. The AI power crisis created a market for technology most investors still fear. Oklo found the customers who value always-on power over decades-old stigma.
Why Can't the Grid Keep Up with AI Demand?
AI data centers consume more electricity than many countries. Each new training run demands gigawatts. The grid can't scale fast enough. Utilities face years of permitting and construction for new transmission lines. But the AI race won't wait for infrastructure that takes a decade to build. Someone had to solve the power problem differently.
What Keeps Investors Away from Nuclear?
Nuclear fear from the 1970s still dominates investor psychology. Mention nuclear and minds go to Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, meltdown risk. This fear ignores fifty years of engineering progress. Modern microreactors use different physics. They physically cannot melt down. The reaction stops itself when temperature rises. The technology changed. The narrative didn't.
How Do Microreactors Solve the Data Center Problem?
Oklo's Aurora microreactor produces 75 megawatts from a unit smaller than a house. It runs on recycled nuclear fuel from existing stockpiles. It deploys in months, not decades. Data centers can install baseload power on-site without waiting for grid upgrades. No transmission lines. No utility negotiations. Carbon-free, 24/7 power exactly where compute happens.
Why Did the Market Finally Price in Nuclear Progress?
AI's insatiable power hunger overcame decades of nuclear stigma. When the alternative is rationing compute, clean nuclear becomes pragmatic. Oklo doesn't ask permission from the grid. It delivers power where it's needed, when it's needed. OKLO rose 375% because necessity rewrites the rules on acceptable risk. Fear yielded to demand.
Clean energy at scale will not happen without nuclear. Oklo is not fixing the past. It is prototyping the energy system that lets AI, cities, and entire regions grow without hitting a wall. The reactors that frightened an earlier generation share very little with the microreactors emerging now. Smaller, safer, and built to sit beside the servers that need them most. If we choose courage over nostalgia, abundant compute and clean power stop being science fiction and start becoming our infrastructure.