The global wire and cable industry gathered in Hanover from 23 to 25 June for the CRU Wire & Cable Connections Summit 2026. The event took place against a demanding backdrop: electrification demand is rising across all major regions, artificial intelligence is reshaping patterns of power consumption, and the recent closure of the Strait of Hormuz had introduced fresh volatility into metal markets. A consistent message emerged across the three days. Demand is no longer the industry's principal concern. The ability to deliver against that demand is.
Day One: Nexans superconductor site visit showed the nature of energy transmission might be about to change
The summit opened with a site visit. Delegates showed very strong interest for, and the visit was quickly fully subscribed, even after an additional session was added. Participants travelled to Nexans Stella Nova, the superconducting and cryogenic technologies centre the company opened in Hanover in 2025. The site combines research, engineering, manufacturing and testing at a single location. Attendees viewed superconducting cable systems, cryogenic transfer lines, high-precision forming and welding equipment, and a high-voltage testing facility used to support next-generation electrical infrastructure. The visit demonstrated that high-temperature superconductors (HTS) have progressed from laboratory research to industrial-scale manufacturing, and it established a theme that would recur throughout the programme.
Day Two: skilled labour, metal supply and the physical limits of copper now set the pace
The first day of presentations confirmed that order books are full for years to come for many major cable producers. Frederic Trefois of Sterlite Electric argued that the binding constraint on the industry is neither copper nor capital but labour, specifically a shortage of the skilled workers required to build infrastructure. Hamid Al Zayani of Midal Cables described expansion from Bahrain to Mozambique and Saudi Arabia, and noted that the logistics resilience of the GCC region was tested during the Strait of Hormuz closure. The scale of demand was evident in the figures. Polycab's Shashi Amin presented an Indian wire and cable market growing at 13 to 14 percent a year as the country targets a US$6 trillion economy by 2030, adding that India is already a net exporter and supplies US$500 million of cable to the United States.
Metal supply was a recurring concern. CRU's Zaid Aljanabi described a market in transition: aluminium faces a short-term deficit but a longer-term surplus as new Indonesian and Saudi capacity comes online, while copper is adequately supplied at present but structurally short over time as mining investment lags. Copper demand is increasingly driven by renewables, electric vehicles and data centres rather than by traditional sectors. On the long-running question of substitution, speakers advised caution. Andreas Levermann of Schwering & Hasse explained why copper still predominates in winding wire: aluminium's cost advantage is offset by lower conductivity, the expense of full motor re-validation, and a carbon footprint currently twice that of copper, because no secondary market yet exists for the high-purity aluminium these applications require.
One of the key themes of the day was data centres. Nexans' Yann Duclot characterised the AI expansion as primarily a power-delivery problem, noting that individual campuses now consume as much electricity as a mid-sized European country, and described an industry consortium with Microsoft, Nvidia, VEIR and UL to standardise HTS safety codes by 2027. Tim Heidel of VEIR estimated projected global data centre investment at US$8 trillion and identified conventional copper busbars as a genuine bottleneck. VEIR's HTS system, demonstrated at 3 MW near Boston, replaces around fifty copper cables with a single superconducting run, reducing installation labour by roughly 80% and installed cost by around 40%.
Richard Payne of AFRY offered a more cautious view, questioning whether 2026’s US$800 billion capital expenditure plans from hyperscalers are sustainable beyond the US and highlighting the fragility of European grids. Even so, the underlying conclusion favoured the sector: whatever the eventual scale of AI demand, the physical infrastructure required to power it is already being built.
Day Three: with technology advances, the constraints are now capacity, codes and economics rather than technology
The second day of presentations turned to grid expansion and the technologies that will support it. CRU's Chi Lee forecasts a 25% y/y increase in high-voltage and extra high-voltage cable demand in 2026, with submarine cables expected to overtake land cables in market value. Europe's priority is supply security: Europacable's Alberto Lampasona described EUR€4 billion of investment that will more than double the production and installation capacity of high-voltage and extra high-voltage cables in Europe by 2030, alongside calls for a European preference principle in public procurement and the inclusion of power cables in the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM).
Superconductivity was the central technology theme. Tommaso Botto of ASG Superconductors presented magnesium diboride (MgB2) as an alternative superconductor material of choice that requires no rare earths and can be produced on standard cabling machinery. The SupraMarine consortium of University Paris-Saclay, Air Liquide and Nexans outlined HTS connections for export cable of 2 GW offshore wind farms that could potentially avoid approximately EUR€1 billion cost of HVDC converter platforms, with a pilot project targeted for 2030. A dedicated panel of HTS producers was clear on positioning: the technology is not a competitor to copper demand but a solution for cases of extreme congestion, and the remaining constraints are manufacturing capacity and codes rather than the underlying physics.
Digitalisation and sustainability completed the programme. Siddharth Uppal of NKT argued that integrated fibre-optic monitoring can raise cable capacity by up to 30%, provided that fibre is built in at the point of manufacture, while Siemens and BHAG Digital demonstrated AI tools that reduce industrial decision times from 17 hours to minutes. The sustainability sessions were notably direct. Olivier Tissot of the International Copper Association argued for separating decarbonisation from recycled-content targets, on the basis that scrap is finite and the smelting process itself must therefore be decarbonised. The International Aluminium Institute noted that 75% of all aluminium ever produced remains in use. The closing panel acknowledged customers are not yet prepared to pay a premium for lower-carbon products, and that sustainability initiatives must, for now, be justified on their own economic merits.
The question is now can the industry keep up with exploding demand for electrical connectivity
The three days in Hanover confirmed that the wire and cable industry occupies a central position in this decade's infrastructure build-out. The principal question has moved from whether electrification demand will materialise to whether the industry can physically deliver it, with sufficient skilled labour, secure raw materials supply, manufacturing capacity and, increasingly, intelligence embedded within the assets themselves. Superconductors attracted the most attention, but the more durable conclusion was straightforward: in the effort to electrify, competitive advantage will rest with those who manage the fundamentals well and enable the world to electrify in a reliable and consistent manner.
