Yes and no. There is no IC in there, but there are small segment in the cable spec that talks about resistors on one of the lines that signal the type of cable available.

So you put one resistor in for a low rated C to C cable, another for a higher C to C rated, and yet another for an A to C converter (indicating that the C end should fall back to the older battery charging spec).

Guess how many fly by night cable manufacturers get those wrong...

the C to C spec charging, or Power Delivery, spec is a whole different barrel of stinking fish. Where you can have everything from 0.5A at 5V to multiple As at 20V running over the same C to C cable.

This is akin to the Qualcomm quickcharge scheme that run 9V over existing micro-USB cables and ports (thus allowing higher wattage without cranking up the amps).

Power Delivery is not just for USB-C. It was defined for use with USB 2.0 and up on any of the legacy connectors.

While true on paper, i wonder if it will ever be implemented as such. And frankly it may well be yet another black mark on the mess that is USB "C" (or 3.1 or whatever).

The resistor in the USB-C cable to identify its current carrying capacity is still a passive component. And of course you can omit this resistor but your device will fall back to the minimum current.

They can be passive - thus the resistor to incidicate the cable's rating.