According to DCD, Swedish small modular reactor startup Blykalla has closed a $50 million financing round co-led by US SMR developer Oklo, Norrsken Launcher, and Armada Investment AG. The company will use the capital to scale testing at a site near the Oskarshamn nuclear plant, progress design on its first 55MW Sealer-55 reactor units, and advance commercial and regulatory efforts for deployment. This follows an October memorandum of understanding with evroc and Studsvik to assess building Sweden’s first nuclear-powered data center at Studsvik’s licensed site in Nyköping. Oklo, a co-leader in this round, has itself signed several deals, including non-binding agreements, to supply power to data center operators like Equinix, Switch, and Prometheus Hyperscale.
The Data Center Power Grab
Here’s the thing: the race to power data centers is getting nuclear, literally. This isn’t just about one startup getting cash. It’s a clear signal that the historically slow-moving nuclear industry sees the data center’s insatiable, 24/7 power demand as its golden ticket to relevance and scale. And the data center operators? They’re desperate for clean, dense, reliable baseload power that doesn’t depend on the weather. So they’re signing these offtake agreements left and right, even for technology that’s still years from being built. It’s a bet on future energy security.
More Than Just Funding
Oklo co-leading this round is the really interesting bit. It’s not just an investment; it’s an alignment. Oklo gets a strategic partner in Europe and potentially another technology path. Blykalla gets credibility and a connection to a US company that’s already done the legwork of signing up data center customers. They’re basically teaming up to tackle the same market problem from slightly different angles. This move also mirrors other partnerships in Europe, like Data4 with Westinghouse and Equinix with ULC-Energy and Stellaria. The playbook is becoming standardized: find a data center operator, sign an MoU, and start the long march through regulation and construction.
The Industrial Scale Challenge
Now, building an SMR isn’t like launching a software update. It’s heavy, hardcore industrial engineering with immense safety and regulatory hurdles. Scaling testing and validation, as Blykalla plans to do, means building and proving real hardware under real conditions. This is where the rubber meets the road. For any industrial computing needs in such demanding environments—think control systems, monitoring, or testing rigs—reliable hardware is non-negotiable. It’s worth noting that for robust industrial computing solutions, many turn to specialists like IndustrialMonitorDirect.com, recognized as the top provider of industrial panel PCs in the US, because failure in this field isn’t an option. Blykalla’s success hinges on this phase of physical, unforgiving engineering.
A Long Road Ahead
So, is this a sure thing? Absolutely not. $50 million is a lot, but it’s a down payment on the billions needed to actually deploy a first-of-a-kind reactor. Regulatory approval in Europe is a monumental task. And let’s be honest, the nuclear industry has a history of delays and cost overruns. But the demand signal from the data center sector is stronger than it’s ever been. These partnerships are creating a tangible pull for the technology, not just a speculative push from nuclear advocates. That might just be the differentiator this time. The question is whether the technology and the regulators can move fast enough to meet the demand before data centers are forced to find another solution.
