Aalo reaches criticality with commercial advanced reactor

Aalo has announced that it brought a commercial-scale advanced reactor to criticality on July 4, 2026 at 12:20 a.m. MT.

• The company’s Critical Test Reactor (CTR) reached a sustained chain reaction in less than eight months from groundbreaking, and Aalo says this is one of the fastest reactor builds in 80 years.
• Aalo said the CTR demonstrates the nuclear components of its 10 MWe reactors, which will be deployed in 50 MWe Aalo Pods to power AI data centers; the company has also started work on a second reactor for Project Ascension at the Aalo-X Campus at INL, expected to produce 10 MWe and power an on-site data center in 2027.