Power Hungry: Inside Meta's Huge Investment in a Nuclear Strategy

For the past two years, the narrative surrounding the artificial intelligence (AI) boom has focused almost exclusively on silicon chips. Investors have watched closely as tech-sector giants have purchased billions of dollars' worth of processors to build out their data centers. 

However, a new bottleneck has emerged that is arguably more difficult to solve than chip shortages: electricity. As AI models evolve from simple chatbots into agentic systems that operate continuously, they will require more power than the current U.S. electrical grid can support.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: META) has moved aggressively to address this challenge. In the first weeks of January 2026, the company entered into a definitive agreement with Oklo Inc. (NYSE: OKLO) to develop a large nuclear power campus. This deal represents a strategic pivot toward vertical integration. By securing its own power supply, Meta is insulating itself from future grid instability and price volatility. This move suggests that management views energy independence as a strict requirement for growth, ensuring its AI ambitions are not capped by utility shortages.

Solving the Puzzle: The Shift to Baseload Power

The partnership with Oklo Inc. is an industrial-scale infrastructure project located in Pike County, Ohio. The deal focuses on deploying Oklo’s Aurora powerhouses. These are advanced fast-fission nuclear reactors capable of nuclear fuel recycling, a distinct advantage over traditional reactors. The project targets up to 1.2 gigawatts (GW) of power capacity.

To put this scale in perspective, 1 GW is equivalent to the energy required to power approximately 900,000 homes. Meta is effectively commissioning a utility-scale power plant strictly for its own operations.

The location is strategic. Pike County sits in proximity to Meta’s Prometheus supercluster and other regional data centers. This reduces the need to transmit power over long distances, thereby reducing energy loss and reliance on congested public transmission lines.

Green investors often ask why technology companies do not rely on wind and solar power, which are usually cheaper to build and deploy.

The answer lies in the physics of artificial intelligence. AI data centers operate at 100% capacity, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They require baseload power, which is a steady, constant flow of electricity that never turns off.

• Intermittency Issues: Solar panels do not generate power at night, and wind turbines stop turning when the weather is calm.
• Storage Costs: While batteries can store some energy, they are currently too expensive to power a facility as large as a data center for extended periods.
• The Nuclear Solution: Nuclear power provides the same reliability as coal or natural gas but without the carbon emissions or regulatory headwinds associated with fossil fuels.

By securing baseload power through Oklo, Meta guarantees 99.99% uptime for its AI products. This reliability standard is essential for the future of Meta Superintelligence Labs and the deployment of advanced AI agents for enterprise customers.

Spending for Survival: How Meta Funds Infrastructure

The transition to an AI-first company comes with a steep price tag. In the third quarter of 2025 alone, Meta reported capital expenditures (CapEx) of $19.37 billion. The company’s full-year 2025 spending forecast is between $70 billion and $72 billion, with 2026 guidance expected to be even higher. These numbers have caused anxiety among some investors who worry about efficiency and profit margins.

However, a closer look at the financial structure of the Oklo deal reveals a calculated use of capital. Meta is utilizing a prepayment model. Instead of taking on interest-bearing debt to build these plants, Meta is using its substantial cash reserves, reported at $44.45 billion in the most recent quarter, to provide upfront capital for construction.

This financial structure offers two key bullish signals:

1. Balance Sheet Efficiency: It allows Meta to secure essential assets without leveraging its balance sheet or diluting shares through new stock offerings.
2. Cost Certainty: By funding construction, Meta secures priority access to the generated power, locking in energy costs for decades, while competitors may be subject to fluctuating spot prices.

During the Q3 2025 earnings call, Chief Financial Officer Susan Li noted that infrastructure capacity is the central requirement for realizing AI opportunities. Viewed through this lens, the rising expenses are more than operating cost increases; they are the entry fee for the next decade of technology. Much like building railroads or fiber optic networks in previous eras, the upfront costs are high, but they create a defensible economic engine that competitors cannot easily replicate.

Building a Private Grid: A 6.6 GW Energy Pipeline

The Oklo agreement is just one piece of a much larger strategy. Meta has secured a total energy pipeline of up to 6.6 GW. This portfolio includes partnerships with Vistra (NYSE: VST), which extends the life of existing nuclear plants for immediate reliability, and TerraPower, which is developing new reactor technology for the future. This diversification mitigates risk; if one project faces delays, others can pick up the slack.

The timeline for the Oklo project creates a long-term horizon for investors to consider. The first reactors are expected to come online around 2030. While this seems distant, it aligns with projections for the U.S. power grid. Energy experts predict that by 2030, the public grid in many regions will face severe capacity shortages due to the combined demand of AI, electric vehicles, and increased manufacturing.

This creates a significant competitive moat. By 2030, companies that rely on the public spot market for electricity may face rationing, throttling, or extreme pricing during peak hours. Meta, having built its own private grid of committed nuclear assets, will possess a significant operational advantage.

Furthermore, this infrastructure supports the company's newest software ambitions. Following the acquisition of the AI startup Manus, Meta is moving toward agentic AI, software that autonomously performs complex tasks. These agents require constant, uninterrupted inference computing. A power outage, even for a few seconds, could disrupt millions of active agents. By controlling the power source, Meta ensures the reliability required to sell these premium services to enterprise clients.

The Long Game: From Social Media to Industry Titan

Meta Platforms is evolving. While it remains a social media company on the surface, its capital allocation suggests it is becoming an industrial infrastructure giant.

The partnership with Oklo confirms that management views energy as a strategic asset to be developed.

For investors, the high capital expenditures should be viewed as the purchase of a long-term insurance policy against grid failure. As AI models continue to grow in size and complexity, the ability to power them will dictate market leadership. By vertically integrating into energy production, Meta is de-risking its long-term future.

While the payoff is years away, the strategy lays a foundation for sustained growth independent of public utility constraints. The stock’s valuation is increasingly supported by these tangible assets and the competitive dominance they ensure.

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The article "Power Hungry: Inside Meta’s Huge Investment in a Nuclear Strategy" first appeared on MarketBeat.