MUSCAT: Crusoe, the US artificial intelligence infrastructure company in which Oman Investment Authority (OIA) retains a stake, plans to pair a modular data centre with an advanced nuclear reactor at Idaho National Laboratory in 2027 under a proof-of-concept project with Austin-based Aalo Atomics.
Aalo will initially supply power to a Crusoe Spark modular data centre running the Crusoe Cloud platform. The companies said the demonstration would test the use of nuclear energy to support power-intensive artificial intelligence workloads.
If the trial succeeds, Crusoe and Aalo intend to deploy 50MW Aalo Pod power plants at Crusoe data centres by the end of 2029. That remains a stated commercial objective rather than a confirmed construction programme. Neither company disclosed the value of the partnership.
An Aalo Pod is designed as a 50MW power plant comprising five 10MW reactors operating through shared electricity-generation systems. Aalo describes the concept as a modular power source for data centres and other large electricity users.
Aalo-X, the company’s test reactor at Idaho National Laboratory, completed a zero-power fuelled criticality demonstration on July 4. It was the fourth advanced reactor authorised by the US Department of Energy to reach the milestone under its Reactor Pilot Programme.
Criticality means that the reactor demonstrated a sustained nuclear chain reaction. It does not mean the unit has begun generating commercial electricity. Full-power operation of the 10MW Aalo-X reactor is expected to be the next stage of development.
Aalo has also begun work on a second reactor next to Aalo-X. The company said the unit would test a commercial-scale system intended to produce electricity for the on-site Crusoe modular data centre.
The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission is separately engaged with Aalo on pre-application work for its proposed Idaho Nuclear Project. Any wider commercial deployment would remain subject to licensing, technical and site-approval requirements.
For Oman, the exposure is indirect.
OIA invested in Crusoe in 2022 alongside Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Investment Company as part of a $350-million Series C funding round led by G2 Venture Partners.
The authority later completed a partial exit, reporting an annual internal rate of return of 68 per cent and a return of 10.3 times invested capital. It retained part of its holding to participate in the company’s future growth.
Neither OIA’s original investment nor the size or current value of its remaining stake has been disclosed publicly.
Crusoe was valued at more than $10 billion following the initial closing of a $1.375-billion Series E funding round announced by the company in October 2025.
OIA has announced no additional capital commitment linked to the Aalo partnership, and no facility in the Sultanate of Oman forms part of the project.
Crusoe said in June that it had contracted 4.9GW of artificial intelligence infrastructure across its data-centre developments and cloud business, while its wider development pipeline exceeded 40GW.
