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Comment by Merrill | Hacker News Reader

De Beers fights lab-grown diamonds with technology as China’s synthetic gems threaten viability of their market

>Companies producing such stones have sprung up all over China, churning out an estimated 160,000 to 200,000 carats of gem-quality diamonds every month. That’s enough to propel the country to the world’s top spot in terms of synthetic production, industry insiders believe.

https://www.scmp.com/business/companies/article/2076225/de-b...

From March 2017. The production of carbon face-centered cubic crystals has continued to grow.

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Synthetic diamonds are not a Chinese invention but an American one. So if you want to point fingers, point them at GE, Norton & Carborundum[1].

As for who manufactures them there's a list[2], and most of these companies are not Chinese.

But maybe the more important point is; Why is it a problem that the De Beers diamond mining company is having some competition. De Beers has a _very_ questionable business history[3], and personally I think the world would be better without their exploitation.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_diamond#GE_diamond_p...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_synthetic_diamond_manu...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Beers#Relocation_of_indigen...

The early American synthetic diamond producers, such as GE, mainly focused on producing industrial diamonds for grinding and other applications not requiring gem quality. They were never interested in taking on the DeBeers monopoly with gemstones.

AFAIK, some of the earliest gem-quality synthetic diamonds were Russian. The Chinese are important because they can evade DeBeers and its influence over the diamond cutting and distribution establishment.

I'm all in favor of synthetic gemstones. Carbon is carbon, mined or not.

De Beers also fights lab-grown diamonds by making and selling their own. [0] Their factory is in Oregon, first build is about 200 growth chambers (microwave plasma CVD).

[0] https://www.debeersgroup.com/media/company-news/2018/de-beer...

Da Beers has their own lab grown direct to consumer subsidiary called Lightbox.

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