Steve Hambric of AssetCool winning the Grid and Power category at the 2026 Data Center World Innovation Challenge, Powered by ABB.

From data centers to electric vehicles to manufacturing, the economy is demanding ever more electricity, putting strain on every stage of the power supply chain. Overhead transmission lines are becoming one major choke point, since it takes several years to expand line capacity given the complex siting, approval, and construction requirements.

The startup AssetCool is focused on increasing capacity of existing lines instead of building new. Using robotic deployment systems, the company applies specialized coatings that improve thermal performance and allow conductors to safely carry more electricity. This helps utilities unlock additional transmission capacity without waiting for new pylons or large-scale infrastructure builds.

“Data centers have become an accelerant,” says Steve Hambric, Chief Commercial Officer at AssetCool. “Electrification and renewable integration were already putting pressure on the grid, but now transmission has become the bottleneck.”

AssetCool won the Grid and Power category at the 2026 Data Center World Innovation Challenge powered by ABB. The Innovation Challenge brought together 24 startups to pitch their data center innovations Shark Tank-style to a panel of judges, with winners selected across multiple categories for their potential impact on next-generation infrastructure.

Transmission Has Become the Bottleneck

Crucially, AssetCool technology can be deployed significantly faster than traditional infrastructure construction projects.

“We need solutions that operate on timelines aligned to the data center industry, not traditional seven- to ten-year infrastructure cycles,” Hambric says.

Power Access Is Now a Site Selection Constraint

Data center developers are increasingly finding that securing land is no longer enough. Access to electricity has become equally important, influencing site selection, project viability, deployment timelines, and community support.

Utilities, meanwhile, are navigating competing pressures from customers, regulators, electrification trends, and renewable integration — all while facing unprecedented growth in demand.

“It’s extremely serious,” Hambric says. “Hyperscalers and developers are feeling it directly in costs and interconnection timelines, but utilities are feeling enormous pressure too. Their job is to deliver reliable, affordable power, and that’s getting harder.”

Why Transmission Flexibility Matters as Much as Generation

The scale of the challenge extends beyond simply generating more electricity.

According to Hambric, transmission flexibility may ultimately matter just as much as generation capacity. Increasingly dynamic energy systems, changing demand patterns, and weather-related disruptions require networks capable of moving power more intelligently across regions.

“We don’t just need bigger networks,” he says. “We need more flexible and resilient networks.”

Historically, utilities have solved capacity problems through large-scale capital projects: building new generation assets, constructing substations, and expanding transmission infrastructure. Those approaches remain necessary, but their timelines increasingly conflict with the pace of AI-driven demand.

Grid-Enhancing Technologies and a Faster Toolkit

As a result, utilities are becoming more open to what the industry broadly refers to as grid enhancing technologies.

“There’s no magic bullet,” Hambric says. “Utilities need a broad toolkit.”

AssetCool sees itself as part of that toolkit rather than a replacement for traditional infrastructure expansion. The company uses proprietary robots for deenergized lines, and autonomous drones that travel directly along energized transmission lines, to apply a proprietary cooling coating designed to reduce conductor temperatures by improving heat dissipation and reflecting solar radiation. By helping lines operate at lower temperatures, utilities can safely increase power transfer capacity on existing assets without major construction projects, creating a faster path to unlocking additional grid capacity.

That philosophy mirrors a wider trend emerging across data center infrastructure. As deployment speed becomes increasingly important, technologies that integrate with current systems often gain traction faster than those requiring wholesale redesign.

Building Trust in Critical Grid Infrastructure

For utilities, however, adopting newer technologies still requires trust.

Grid operators are responsible for infrastructure where reliability is non-negotiable, and introducing new approaches into operational networks can create understandable hesitation.

Hambric believes AssetCool’s technology addresses that concern by reducing operational risk rather than increasing it. Because the coating lowers conductor operating temperatures, utilities gain additional thermal headroom while also reducing the likelihood of overheating-related constraints during periods of peak demand. AssetCool’s monitoring capabilities allow operators to track line temperatures and performance in near real time, giving utilities the ability to verify how a treated line is performing before increasing its power transfer limits.

“You can monitor line temperatures in near real time and validate performance before increasing capacity,” he says. “You have a direct feedback loop.”

More broadly, he believes utilities need to rethink how they evaluate emerging technologies. Hambric advocates for contained deployments designed around measurable business outcomes.

“Don’t do science experiments,” he says. “Solve real operational problems.”

Collaboration Between Hyperscalers and Utilities Is Increasing

Data centers’ extreme demand for quick access to power has brought a much closer conversation between utilities and data center operators. A few years ago, discussions around utilities and data centers were often more sequential: developers requested power and utilities then planned around future growth.

Today, collaboration is becoming more direct.

“We’re seeing more engagement between hyperscalers and utilities,” Hambric says. “And we need more of it.”

The Grid as the Defining Constraint of AI Growth

While industry conversations often focus on the risks created by gigawatt-scale campuses to support ambitious AI deployments, Hambric believes those projects will force a deeper rethinking of how infrastructure is planned, including into how much utilities invest in optimizing the transmission resources it has in place. Such investment could create opportunity for startups like AssetCool, as transmission operators become more willing to try new approaches.

“The grid cannot accommodate data centers at that scale in its current form,” he says.