Aalo Atomics Has Achieved Criticality

Aalo Atomics brought a commercial-scale advanced reactor to criticality on July 4, 2026 at 12:20 AM (MT), surpassing the president’s goal of at least three criticalities by July 4. Criticality, which marks the first self-sustaining chain reaction within a nuclear fission reactor, was achieved under Department of Energy (DOE) authorization. “Last month I toured the Aalo facility at Idaho National Laboratory and was impressed by the company’s determination to successfully demonstrate their technology by the Fourth of July,” said U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright. “President Trump asked for three advanced reactors to be authorized and achieve criticality before the 250th anniversary of our great country. I’m pleased to share that through the dedication and hard work of Aalo, INL and DOE, we have surpassed that ask and delivered four!” The Aalo-X Critical Test Reactor (CTR) includes a full-scale core, demonstrating the nuclear components of the company’s 10 MWe reactors, which will be deployed in 50 MWe Aalo Pods to power modern AI data centers. The CTR site went from groundbreaking to a sustained chain reaction in less than 8 months—one of the fastest reactor builds in 80 years—and Aalo went from founding to fission in 3 years. Aalo also took on the largest scope within the Reactor Pilot Program: we built, licensed, and operated the reactor facility from scratch, stood up our own safety programs, loaded 10 MW worth of fuel, and manufactured full systems in-house. We took this scope on because it is the fastest, most de-risked pathway to non-military commercial deployment of an advanced nuclear reactor. Our roadmap is straightforward: 1) full-scale zero-power reactor 2) full-scale 10 MWe power reactor 3) first commercial Pod deployed to power data centers. The reactor was completed and turned on under Executive Order 14301, signed May 2025, which called for at least three test reactors to reach criticality by July 4, 2026. "4 by the 4th" is now a reality: American nuclear has answered the country's call and surpassed the President's order. The milestone was celebrated at a private livestreamed event with our team, family, partners, and investors. While we could not publicly stream the event per DOE requirements, we will make the full, uncut stream (~5 hours leading into criticality) available to the public this week. Criticality has now validated Aalo's supply chain, reactor physics, control systems, and fuel-loading procedures at full scale. Our path forward runs through power operations, manufacturing scale-up, and delivering commercial electricity. Aalo is expanding into a 1 million sqft factory to apply assembly-line manufacturing to reactor production - this will open the door to mass-producing the Aalo Pod, our power plant for data centers built from 10 MWe modules, configured from 50 MW up to 200 MW. Neither our criticality nor the American nuclear resurgence would not be possible without the deep vision, leadership, and support of President Trump, Secretary of Energy Wright, DOE-ID, and INL. Additionally, we are sharing for the first time that Aalo-X, our first full-power power plant, has completed site groundwork and will power an on-site data center in 2027. Our mission starts with powering the data center buildout via the Aalo Pod. It ends with unlocking energy abundance at civilizational scale. We are very early in this journey. To join our team or learn more, visit our website: https://aalo.com ______________________________________ We build mass-manufactured nuclear plants that will power anything from a datacenter to a city. Our mission is to eventually achieve 3¢ / kWh electricity. Our first product will be the Aalo Pod, a 50 MWe power plant purpose-built for data centers. We've raised $136M to help us get started. X: @AaloAtomics Instagram: @aalo.atomics YouTube: ⁨@AaloAtomics⁩ Website: https://aalo.com