Aalo Atomics가 7월 4일 핵 임계성을 달성했으며, 소형 모듈식 원자로 배포의 중요한 이정표를 세웠습니다.

Aalo Atomics achieved sustained chain reaction criticality on July 4 at 12:20 a.m. Mountain Time at its test facility in Austin, Texas. The milestone marks a significant acceleration in domestic reactor development, completed in just eight months from initial groundbreaking.

"We are proud to play a major role in America's nuclear renaissance, going from breaking ground to a sustained chain reaction in just eight months, one of the fastest reactor builds in modern American history," said Yasir Arafat, president and chief technical officer of Aalo Atomics.

The test reactor incorporates a full-scale core designed to validate the nuclear components of a 10-megawatt electric reactor. Aalo's strategy envisions combining multiple full-scale reactors into a 50-megawatt commercial "Aalo Pod" configuration, purpose-built to power artificial intelligence data centers.

John Wagner, director of the Idaho National Laboratory, praised the achievement in a news release: "This is exactly what a nuclear renaissance looks like: American companies, moving at American speed, proving novel reactor designs real one after another."

The scope of Aalo's undertaking was substantial. "We took on the largest scope within the Reactor Pilot Program: We built, licensed, and operated the reactor facility from scratch. We stood up our own safety programs, built 10 MW worth of fuel assemblies, and manufactured and quality-controlled commercial-scale systems in-house," the company stated.

The criticality test validated critical systems at commercial scale. "Criticality has validated our supply chain, reactor physics, control systems, and fueling procedures at commercial scale," Aalo said. The company is now constructing a one-million square-foot manufacturing facility to apply assembly-line production methods to reactor manufacturing, enabling mass production of the Aalo Pod.

Aalo announced a series of key supplier partnerships in 2026. In March, the company signed fuel fabrication contracts with Global Nuclear Fuel. That same month, Urenco USA completed enrichment of the uranium hexafluoride feedstock required for fuel fabrication and delivered it to GNF. Aalo also selected Baker Hughes to supply a 10-megawatt electric steam turbine generator set and associated systems.

Work is underway on Project Ascension, a second reactor that will house a commercial-scale 10-megawatt reactor at Aalo's Idaho National Laboratory site. This facility will generate electricity and power an on-site data center beginning in 2027.

Four Department of Energy-authorized test reactors have now achieved criticality, with additional reactor participants across the Reactor Pilot Program and Nuclear Energy Launch Pad advancing their respective technologies.