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Using Artificial Intelligence (AI) on ASTM standards and related intellectual property is prohibited. Violations will result in suspension of access.
By Jack Maxwell
Oct 31, 2025
Artificial intelligence. Cloud computing. Cryptocurrency. Among recent examples of the ongoing evolution of modern technology, these are three of the most widely discussed. Perhaps due to its uneasy combination of limitless potential and dystopian implications, AI in particular is covered regularly in the news media.
Yet as awareness and understanding of these remarkable technical advances continues to grow, one aspect of that growth is often overlooked: the enormous amount of electricity required to run the massive data centers that enable their functionality.
While the electrical power-supply system comprises many elements, one of the most fundamental is conductors, more commonly known as power lines. The ability of these conductors to handle the ever-increasing demands being placed upon them is a key focus of ASTM International’s committee on electrical conductors (B01). Here is a closer look at their efforts to address the need for a more robust power-supply infrastructure and the role standards play.
Perhaps you’re wondering: What exactly is a data center? Cisco defines it as “A physical facility that organizations use to house their critical applications and data,” utilizing a network of computing and storage resources that includes routers, switches, firewalls, storage systems, servers, and application-delivery controllers.
Data centers are not a new phenomenon. Many variations of the basic configuration defined earlier – including traditional enterprise data centers (which are company owned and operated for internal users) and managed services data centers run by third-party operators – have been up and running for decades.
Hyperscale data centers are a more recent development. Examples of these massive facilities (some over a mile long, others stacked with multiple levels) include cloud data centers, which are managed by cloud services providers (Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, etc.); cryptocurrency data centers, where transactions involving Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other cryptocurrencies are verified and recorded; and, perhaps most impactful of all, AI data centers.
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These operations require huge amounts of energy. The U.S. Department of Energy, in a report released in December of 2024, estimated that total data-center energy usage in the U.S. alone climbed from 58 Terrawatt-hours (TWh) in 2013 to 176 TWh in 2023. (A Terrawatt-hour is equivalent to one trillion watt-hours.) This figure is projected to increase to between 325 and 580 TWh by 2028, which would represent 6.7-12% of total U.S. electrical consumption.
One of the most consequential contributors to this skyrocketing demand for energy is a small but critical component of the computers that populate hyperscale data centers: the graphics processing unit (GPU). According to Cisco, GPUs “consume ten to fifteen times more power per processing cycle than CPUs that power traditional data centers because of the computational intensity of training and running AI models.”
The explosive growth of AI applications like ChatGPT – which registered approximately 100 million users within two months of its launch in late 2022 – requires gigantic data centers that house staggering numbers of GPU chips. Meeting the demand generated by these AI facilities, as well as others devoted to crypto mining and cloud computing, will require upgraded power lines. ASTM is developing standards to help make this possible.
While the general public may not be aware of the issue of data-center power consumption, Charles Holcombe and his B01 colleagues certainly are.
“The industry has a big challenge with all these data centers coming online,” says Holcombe, who chairs the committee. “They consume a lot of power, and with the growth of data and AI, you need more generation and you need more transmission.”
Focusing on the latter, Holcombe notes the disconnect between the exponentially increasing demand and the time required to build new transmission lines. Data centers can be up and running in just a couple of years, but “it takes seven to ten years to build a new power line. You have to acquire the land, which takes forever. You have to clear it, build the foundations and structures. It’s a long cycle.”
One way of bridging that time gap is a reconductor, an upgrade that increases the ampacity of the existing transmission system. Ampacity is the maximum current, in amperes, that a conductor can carry continuously under the conditions of use without exceeding its temperature rating.
“Let’s say there’s an existing line and we need more ampacity through an existing corridor,” Holcombe says. “If we switch the conductor out, we can put in a higher temperature conductor. We can actually double or even approach tripling the capacity of a line. Essentially, what a reconductor is, you pull one out, you put a new one in, you try to minimize the structural changes to the transmission structures, and then you’re up and running much faster.”
In Holcombe’s experience, a reconductor project can be completed in about two years, versus the seven to ten needed for a new transmission line.
New standards will help the world meet its ever-increasing need for electricity.
Standards covering how electrical conductors are configured are an important part of the work being done in B01, particularly in view of the increasing prevalence of so-called advanced conductors featuring polymer composite cores. A brief look at the basics of wire construction will help in understanding the evolution of this key element of the power-supply infrastructure and how standards are evolving to keep pace.
Holcombe explains that electrical conductors come in various configurations, each designed for specific applications and performance requirements. They include:
“You go from solid to stranded for flexibility, and you go from stranded to braided for even more flexibility,” Holcombe says. “So if you have a tight jumper in a substation or control house, or if you need something that’s going to be in motion from time to time, or in constant motion, that’s usually where you use the braided conductor.”
These conductors are graded to provide end users with an easy way to identify the best product for a particular application. Grade MA2 is standard strength, MA3 is high strength, and MA5 is ultra-high strength. Holcombe describes MA5 as a niche application, with MA2 and MA3 used in the vast majority of situations.
Steel core configurations with grades 6, 7, and 8 are being used in Europe and are the subject of a work item currently in development. A new standard specification for strength grade 6, 7, and 8 zinc-coated (galvanized) steel core wire for use in overhead electrical conductors (WK94849) is intended to create a new standard for these higher strength zinc-coated steel cores. It is currently under development in the subcommittee on conductors of ferrous metals (B01.05),
At their most fundamental level, large transmission overhead power lines used at high voltage (ranging from 115kV to 785kV) consist of a core and a conductor. The core is what Holcombe refers to as a “strength and sag improvement layer” that supports an outer layer of aluminum, which is the actual electrical conductor. “The core enables you to hold up more aluminum with acceptable sag,” he says.
“So you have a core, and then you have aluminum strands that are going to go on the outside,” Holcombe continues. “The different layers of aluminum strands are based on ampacity, how much current you want to put through the wire. Composition of the core depends on the strength and sag characteristics needed to hold the wire up in the air when it’s attached to the towers.”
Another consideration is creep, which is a slow, irreversible relaxation of the conductor when subjected to line tension, ice, and/or wind. Several standards related to creep are either in progress or completed. The subcommittee on methods of test and sampling procedure (B01.02) finished work on a standard test method for stress-strain testing for overhead electrical conductors (B1008), which helps the industry understand short-term creep characteristics and accurately model how overhead power lines sag. A new test method for creep testing for overhead electrical conductors is in the development stage, as work item WK92464.
The range of materials used for conductor cores has expanded over the years. Holcombe explains that stranded steel-wire cores came into use early in the 1900s, and in fact continue to be widely utilized to this day. “This is still the typical construction, but the newer composite-core conductors, which are fashioned from carbon fiber in a resin matrix, are highly reliable,” he says. “They’re stronger and more corrosion-resistant than steel, and enable you to hold more aluminum up. They don’t sag a lot throughout the design cycle, which minimizes structure height and allows for more effective reconductor.”
Advanced conductors are the focus of the newly revised standard specification for carbon fiber thermoset polymer matrix composite core (CFC) for use in overhead electrical conductors (B987). According to Holcombe, this type of core is a component of high-temperature low-sag (HTLS) conductors. The new version of B987, which was approved several months ago, includes standard specifications for a multi-strand thermoset polymer-matrix composite core, a new technology used widely in the domestic transmission and distribution market.
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“The next step,” says Holcombe, “is to create a finished conductor standard that utilizes the composite cores from B987.” A work item with that goal in mind – new specification for shaped wire, compact concentric-lay-stranded aluminum conductors, composite (WK62591) – is currently in progress.
Residential building wire also falls under the purview of B01. Although many committee members come from the world of high-voltage transmission conductors, others, like Dustin Fox, are working on improvements to products used to wire the home.
“When you talk about electrical conductors, you’re not talking about just power transmission,” says Fox, who chairs the subcommittee on bi-metallic conductors (B01.06). “There’s power in the house, and there’s also signal transmission. So the conductors are not just transmitting power, they’re transmitting signals – through coaxial cables to your television, for example.”
Copper-clad aluminum wire is one of the bimetallic conductor configurations used in residential applications. It is also the focus of a B01.06 work item that builds on the foundation established by an older standard.
The standard specification for copper-clad aluminum wire was first published in 1988, and was recently reapproved. Fox and his colleagues have been developing a new specification for copper clad aluminum wire for electrical power distribution and grounding applications (WK67615) for several years. It is in the process of being finalized.
According to Fox, the goal of the effort is to develop a clear and concise standard for bimetallic components in building wire applications. Emphasis will be placed on a quality product with low defects to ensure consumer safety.
“B566 was used as the basis for this new standard, as it is related to copper-clad aluminum wire,” Fox continues. “But B566 is non-specific as it relates to applications. The new standard will be specific for building wire applications, and has stricter requirements, specifications, tolerances, and testing due to safety concerns for its use in residential and commercial building-related power applications. It is also being developed to harmonize with UL and National Electrical Code [NEC] standards, which have similar stringent health and safety requirements.”
A little history adds context to this tale of evolving wire designs. Fox notes that copper wire – no cladding, no other metallic components – has been the norm in residential housing wire for decades. In the 1970s, however, solid aluminum wire was introduced as a better-performing alternative. One problem: “Aluminum is very prone to oxidation, and they had a number of house fires. So they got away from that very quickly,” Fox says.
Aluminum conductors that wear a coat of copper cladding don’t have this problem. Aluminum is also a lot less expensive than copper. It all adds up to what seems to be a good business case for these bimetallic conductors, which Fox confirms are already being used by many residential home builders, indicating a bright future.●
Jack Maxwell is a freelance writer based in Westmont, NJ.
November / December 2025
