According to the standard, you can't. There is nothing, however, stopping a manufacturer from making USB-C cables with very fine-gauge power conductors[1]: ele

According to the standard, you can't. There is nothing, however, stopping a manufacturer from making USB-C cables with very fine-gauge power conductors[1]: electrons could flow, and a data connection could be negotiated, but resistive losses at high power consumption would cause the voltage to sag below the minimum of 4.40V. Such a cable would not be standards-compliant, since USB-C cables are required to be able to carry 3 Amperes at 20V. However, for pure data-transfer purposes, the cable would work fine, and be cheaper that fully-compliant cables. [1] After all, a full-featured cable needs to fit 16 (!) conductors, and the shield, into one flexible cable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB-C#Cables_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB-C#Cables_2