“Demand is no longer the wire and cable industry's principal concern — delivery is”
This is the third installment of a quarterly editorial series authored by CRU, a globally recognized authority in metals, materials and value chain analysis. The first edition outlined CRU's top market calls for 2026, and the second examined how US data center growth is reshaping grid investment. This issue draws on insights gathered at CRU's Wire & Cable Connections Summit 2026, held in Hanover from 23 to 25 June, where the industry's attention shifted from a familiar question to a harder one.
Our first two editions tracked the demand side of the story — how fast electrification is moving, how much data centers need. In Hanover, CRU treated that question as settled: electrification demand is rising across every major region, and artificial intelligence is reshaping global patterns of power consumption. The harder question, the one that occupied the summit's three days, was different: can the industry actually deliver against it?
A glimpse of the answer, on day one
The summit opened not with a panel, but with a site visit to Nexans Stella Nova, the superconducting and cryogenic technologies center the company opened in Hanover in 2025, where research, engineering, manufacturing and testing sit under a single roof. Interest was strong enough that organizers added a second session. Attendees viewed superconducting cable systems, cryogenic transfer lines and a high-voltage testing facility — tangible evidence that high-temperature superconductors (HTS) have moved from laboratory research to industrial-scale manufacturing.
It was an early signal of a theme that would recur throughout the program: the technology to electrify the world increasingly exists. What is scarcer is the capacity to build, staff, supply and operate it at the scale now required. Four constraints, in particular, emerged from the discussions in Hanover.
Skilled labor, not copper or capital
Order books are full for years to come across many major cable producers. Frederic Trefois of Sterlite Electric argued that the binding constraint on the industry is neither copper nor capital, but a shortage of the skilled workers needed to build infrastructure.
The scale of what that labor needs to support was evident in the numbers shared by Polycab’s Shashi Amin, who presented an Indian wire and cable market growing 13–14% a year as the country targets a $6 trillion economy by 2030. India is already a net exporter, supplying $500 million of cable to the United States. Hamid Al Zayani of Midal Cables described a parallel expansion from Bahrain into Mozambique and Saudi Arabia, adding that the GCC region's logistics resilience was tested by the recent closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
Raw materials: a market in transition
CRU's Zaid Aljanabi described a metals picture that is shifting rather than tightening uniformly: aluminum faces a short-term deficit but a longer-term surplus as new Indonesian and Saudi capacity comes online, while copper is adequately supplied today but structurally short over time as mining investment lags demand increasingly driven by renewables, electric vehicle, and data centers. On the copper-aluminum substitution question, the message from Hanover was caution rather than urgency. Andreas Levermann of Schwering & Hasse explained why copper still dominates winding wire applications: aluminum's cost advantage is offset by lower conductivity, the cost of full motor re-validation, and a carbon footprint currently twice that of copper — because no secondary market yet exists for the high-purity aluminum these applications require.
Photo source: CRU
Manufacturing capacity and codes, not physics
If day one previewed where superconductor technology is headed, day two's data-center discussions and day three's grid-focused sessions made clear why it matters. Nexans' Yann Duclot framed AI expansion as fundamentally a power-delivery problem — individual campuses now consume as much electricity as a mid-sized European country — and pointed to an industry consortium with Microsoft, Nvidia, VEIR and UL working to standardize HTS safety codes by 2027. Tim Heidel of VEIR put projected global data center investment at $8 trillion and named conventional copper busbars as a genuine bottleneck; the company's HTS system, demonstrated at 3 MW near Boston, replaces roughly fifty copper cables with a single superconducting run, cutting installation labor by about 80% and installed cost by around 40%. Not every voice was as bullish — Richard Payne of AFRY questioned whether 2026's $800 billion in hyperscaler capital expenditure plans are sustainable beyond the US, and flagged the fragility of European grids. Even so, the broader takeaway favored the sector: regardless of how AI demand ultimately scales, the physical infrastructure needed to power it is already under construction.
At transmission scale, CRU's Chi Lee forecasts a 25% year-on-year rise in high- and extra-high-voltage cable demand in 2026, with submarine cables set to overtake land cables in market value. Europacable's Alberto Lampasona pointed to €4 billion of investment that will more than double Europe's production and installation capacity for these cables by 2030, alongside calls for a European preference principle in public procurement and for power cables to be included in the EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM). On the technology itself, Tommaso Botto of ASG Superconductors presented magnesium diboride (MgB2) — a superconductor material that needs no rare earths and can be produced using standard cabling machinery — while the SupraMarine consortium (Université Paris-Saclay, Air Liquide and Nexans) outlined HTS connections for the export cables of 2 GW offshore wind farms, potentially avoiding roughly €1 billion in HVDC converter-platform costs, with a pilot project targeted for 2030. A dedicated panel of HTS producers was consistent on positioning: the technology isn't competing with copper demand, it's solving cases of extreme congestion — and what remains is manufacturing capacity and codes, not the underlying physics.
Intelligence embedded in the asset itself
The final constraint is less about building more and more about knowing more. Siddharth Uppal of NKT argued that integrated fibre-optic monitoring, built in at the point of manufacture, can raise a cable's effective capacity by up to 30%. Siemens and BHAG Digital demonstrated AI tools cutting industrial decision times from 17 hours to minutes. Sustainability sessions were notably direct on where the industry stands: the International Copper Association's Olivier Tissot argued for separating decarbonization from recycled-content targets, since scrap is finite and the smelting process itself must be decarbonized; the International Aluminium Institute noted that 75% of all aluminum ever produced remains in use today. The closing panel was candid that customers are not yet willing to pay a premium for lower-carbon products — for now, sustainability initiatives need to stand on their own economic merits.
In brief
Three days in Hanover confirmed that wire and cable now sits at the center of this decade's infrastructure build-out — and that the industry's real test is no longer whether electrification demand will materialize, but whether it can physically keep pace with it. That means enough skilled labor, secure raw material supply, sufficient manufacturing capacity, and increasingly, intelligence built into the assets themselves. Superconductors drew the most attention in Hanover, but the more durable conclusion was simpler: competitive advantage will rest with those who manage these fundamentals well enough to deliver electrification reliably and consistently.
This article draws on insights and data shared at CRU's Wire & Cable Connections Summit 2026 (Hanover, 23–25 June 2026).
Photo source: CRU
Author:
Aisling Hubert
Lead, Wire & Cable Services – Chicago
Aisling leads CRU's Wire & Cable Services and edits the Wire & Cable Market Outlook and Electricity Transmission Market Outlook. She specializes in analyzing global wire and cable markets, with a focus on metal demand driven by electrification, energy transition and infrastructure development. Aisling holds an MSci in Geology from the University of Southampton and is a member of Women in Mining UK.
CRU's Wire and Cable team has delivered authoritative market analysis and client support for decades, supported by specialists located in major global hubs including London, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Beijing, Shanghai and New Delhi. Experts are available for direct consultation on emerging trends and market developments.
For further information, visit CRU Wire and Cable.
