The Nuke Race Is On. Energy Department Taps 10 Start-Ups to Build a Reactor By Mid-2026.

Aalo Atomics is one of nearly a dozen companies picked for a test program aimed at getting three new nuclear reactors running by July 2026. (Courtesy Aalo Atomics Inc)

The race is on to build a test nuclear reactor on American soil in less than a year.

On Tuesday, the Department of Energy picked 11 projects from 10 companies, including two projects from publicly traded Oklo , to participate in a test reactor program that aims to have at least three reactors up and running at America’s national laboratories by July 4, 2026.

Oklo stock jumped 6% on the news, after trading flat earlier in the day following a mixed earnings report. At least one other name on the list, Terrestrial Energy, is expecting to go public later this year after merging with a blank check company.

The remaining companies that were chosen include Aalo Atomics, Antares Nuclear, Atomic Alchemy, Deep Fission, Last Energy, Natura Resources, Radiant Energy, and Valar Atomics.

Every nuclear reactor in the U.S. today is a large water-cooled reactor, similar in design to the first reactors created in the 1950s. But start-up companies like the ones that were picked are building advanced reactors using much different designs that they claim can be built faster and cheaper, to accommodate the needs of users like AI data centers. It’s a hot investment area, but one that is largely unproven.

Usually, nuclear reactors take 10 years or so to get licensed and built. But President Donald Trump wants to speed things up, and potentially bypass the traditional methods of testing whether a reactor is safe.

Normally, new reactors go through an extended review process through the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, or NRC, an independent body that’s focused on making sure the public isn’t exposed to undue risks. The process normally takes several years. Trump wants to shorten that dramatically, potentially adding new kinds of reactors to sites around the country in just a few years.

In an executive order he signed in May, Trump directed the Department of Energy to create this pilot program and get the reactors up and running by mid-2026. Trump said in another executive order that reactors that are tested by the Department of Energy or Department of Defense should not have to go through the traditional regulatory process at the NRC.

The NRC should not be “revisiting risks that have already been addressed in the DOE or DOD processes,” he wrote. Some nuclear experts have raised concerns about bypassing the traditional regulatory safeguards.

Trump also discussed potentially changing the standards for radiation emissions from reactors to make them less stringent. Current standards are unrealistic, he said.

Write to Avi Salzman at avi.salzman@barrons.com

Corrections & Amplifications: Ten companies were selected to build nuclear reactors for the Department of Energy’s pilot program. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said that there were 11 companies chosen.