Aalo risks ceding AI data center primacy

The real first mover prize is not just selling a reactor first, it is becoming the default way new AI data centers buy firm power. In this market, the company that gets a live site running first can lock in the reference project, the permitting playbook, and the customer relationships that later buyers copy. Aalo is still targeting a 2026 license application for commercial deployment, while rivals like Last Energy and Westinghouse are already advancing their own regulatory and customer motions around data center and microreactor use cases.

• Aalo has moved into pre licensing with the NRC and says it aims to file a full commercial license application in 2026, while separately using a DOE pathway to get Aalo-X to criticality by July 4, 2026. That helps prove the hardware, but it does not replace the NRC path needed for broad commercial rollout.
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• Competitors are not waiting. Last Energy announced plans in February 2025 for 30 microreactors totaling 600 MW in Texas for data center customers, and said it planned an early site permit filing. Westinghouse has an open NRC pre application process for eVinci and a Penn State project moving through early licensing steps.
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• First deployment matters because data center buyers are buying speed and certainty more than reactor elegance. A vendor that can show a working site, a repeatable siting package, and a contract structure like a long term PPA has a much easier time winning the next campus than a company still explaining when approval will land.
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The market is heading toward a land grab for nuclear powered compute campuses. If Aalo stays on schedule, it can turn its first reactor into the template for 50 MW pods beside AI clusters. If it slips, better capitalized or further advanced competitors can become the standard procurement choice before Aalo reaches broad commercial deployment.