Altman to Step Down as Chairman of Nuclear Developer Oklo

(Bloomberg) -- Sam Altman, the billionaire co-founder of OpenAI Inc., is stepping down from his role as chairman of Oklo Inc., clearing a path for the advanced nuclear company to more aggressively pursue deals to deliver clean energy to power-hungry artificial intelligence firms. 

Oklo’s chief executive officer and co-founder Jake DeWitte will take over as chairman, the Santa Clara, California-based company said in a statement on Tuesday. Altman’s exit eliminates potential conflicts of interest as Oklo looks for more customers in the tech and AI industry, which has shown a strong interest in nuclear energy. 

Global electricity demand is expected to surge, driven by AI companies, data centers and efforts to electrify homes and factories. Technology companies are seeking to secure clean power to fuel their energy-intensive facilities, but the notoriously slow pace of developing nuclear reactors means few will be available anytime soon. 

However, Oklo is in the vanguard of the effort to develop the next generation of fission technology and has said it may be able to deploy its first system as early as 2027.

“We are excited to continue working to bring scalable, clean energy to the AI sector and beyond, and to continue to explore strategic partnerships with leading AI companies, including potentially with OpenAI,” Caroline Cochran, Oklo co-founder and chief operating officer, said in the statement.  

Firms including Microsoft Corp., Amazon.com Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google have signed agreements since last year to source nuclear power for their data centers.  

Altman has backed Oklo since 2015 when he became chairman. The company went public last year in a merger with a blank-check company backed by the OpenAI co-founder. 

In December, the firm announced a deal to supply as much as 12 gigawatts of electricity to data center operator Switch Inc. and last April, it signed a non-binding letter of intent with US oil producer Diamondback Energy Inc. to deploy small reactors to power drilling operations in Texas’s Permian Basin. 

(Updates with comment from executive in fifth paragraph, background throughout.)

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