New York, January 9, 2026, 10:01 (EST) — Regular session
- Meta shares edge higher after it unveiled three nuclear-power agreements tied to AI data centers
- Vistra and Oklo jump about 15% as investors price in long-term power sales linked to Meta
- Focus turns to permitting timelines and Meta’s next earnings update for capex guidance
Meta Platforms (META.O) shares were up 0.1% on Friday after the Facebook owner announced nuclear power agreements aimed at locking in electricity for its growing AI data centers. Vistra (VST.N) climbed 14.6% and reactor developer Oklo (OKLO.N) gained 15.8%, while the Nasdaq 100-tracking Invesco QQQ ETF edged up 0.3%.
The deals land as big tech companies chase long-term power supplies to keep up with demand from AI computing and new data centers, a shift that has started to lift U.S. electricity demand after years of flat growth. For Meta, the message is simple: power is turning into a bottleneck alongside chips and real estate. (Reuters)
Investors have been sensitive to anything that hints at how expensive — and how fast — Meta’s buildout gets. In October, the company warned 2026 capital spending would be “notably larger” as it pushes ahead with new data centers, after raising the low end of its 2025 capex outlook to $70 billion. (Reuters)
Vistra said it signed 20-year power purchase agreements — long-term contracts to buy electricity — covering more than 2,600 megawatts from the Perry and Davis-Besse plants in Ohio and Beaver Valley in Pennsylvania, including 433 MW from output boosts known as uprates. Urvi Parekh, Meta’s head of global energy, said nuclear provides “clean, reliable power” that is essential for its AI ambitions. (PR Newswire)
Oklo said Meta can prepay for power and provide upfront funding to help develop a 1.2-gigawatt power campus in Pike County, Ohio. Oklo co-founder and CEO Jacob DeWitte called Meta’s funding commitment “a major step” toward deploying its Aurora reactors, with pre-construction work slated to begin this year and a first phase targeted as early as 2030. (Oklo)
TerraPower, backed by Bill Gates, said Meta will fund early work on up to eight Natrium reactor-and-storage plants in the United States, providing up to 2.8 gigawatts of baseload power with storage that can lift output to 4 GW. TerraPower CEO Chris Levesque said the agreement is meant to “support the rapid deployment” of Natrium units, with initial deliveries targeted as early as 2032. (PR Newswire)
Meta said the three projects together could support up to 6.6 GW of new and existing clean energy by 2035, including power tied to its Prometheus AI “supercluster” in New Albany, Ohio. Chief global affairs officer Joel Kaplan said the agreements would make Meta “one of the most significant” corporate purchasers of nuclear energy, building on an earlier Constellation partnership for a reactor in Clinton, Illinois. (About Facebook)
But the new-reactor parts of the plan carry long timelines and regulatory risk. Small modular reactors — smaller designs meant to be built in repeatable units — still need permits and financing, and industry watchers have warned costs can climb quickly if projects slip or fail to scale. (Financial Times)
A separate issue is brewing in Europe: the European Commission said it is considering designating WhatsApp as a “very large platform” under the Digital Services Act, which would raise its legal duties around illegal and harmful content. With Meta’s investor calendar still blank, traders are now looking to the next earnings update — Wall Street Horizon flags January 28 as an after-market reporting date but says it is unconfirmed — for any reset to spending plans and AI infrastructure timelines. (Reuters)
