What is ANSI?

ANSI (American National Standards Institute) is a private, non-profit organization that coordinates the U.S. voluntary standards and conformity assessment system. It does not develop standards itself, but rather accredits standards developing organizations (SDOs) and approves American National Standards (ANS). These standards cover a wide range of technologies and industries, ensuring interoperability, safety, and quality. For example, ANSI standards are used in programming languages (like ANSI C), character encoding (like ASCII, though ASCII predates ANSI), and dimensional specifications.