Editor’s Note
This article highlights China’s pivotal role in the lab-grown diamond industry, where technological advancements have dramatically compressed production timelines. It underscores a significant shift in global manufacturing and gemstone markets.
Today, over 70% of the world’s jewelry-grade lab-grown diamonds come from Chinese factories, with Henan province at the core of this industrial transformation. While the Earth takes over a billion years to form a natural diamond, Feng Canjun at the Jiaruifu Diamond factory in Zhengzhou, China, can cultivate a gem of equivalent specifications in just seven days.
On a sweltering summer afternoon, 600 machines larger than African elephants roar in this factory, simulating the high-pressure, high-temperature conditions deep underground. Their weekly output of three-carat diamonds is enough to set a large engagement ring.
Feng Canjun said, pointing to rows of equipment. His three factories operate around the clock, producing approximately 100,000 carats of diamonds per month. The former aerospace materials engineer’s diamond-studded watch gleams, mirroring the dazzling performance of China’s cultivated diamond industry on the global stage.
Feng Canjun asserted, a statement that is far from an exaggeration.
The emergence of lab-grown diamonds is delivering a devastating blow to the natural diamond industry: prices for small natural diamonds have fallen to a decade low. The century-old giant De Beers has been put up for sale by its parent company Anglo American, with its $4.9 billion valuation facing a significant discount. The first round of bidding is set to close next month.
Last year, De Beers’ revenue was only half of its 2022 figure. Diamond operations at mining companies like Alrosa and Rio Tinto have experienced similar declines. The once-unshakable natural diamond empire is now teetering.
The “lethality” of lab-grown diamonds stems from their astonishing price-performance ratio. Data from analyst Paul Zimnisky shows that the current price of a three-carat lab-grown diamond is only 7% of that of a natural diamond.
In 2020, a lab-grown diamond of comparable quality retailed for about $28,900, half the price of a natural one. By the second quarter of 2025, the price had plummeted to $3,900, just one-eighth of the 2020 price.
The unpolished rough stones produced by Feng Canjun are priced as low as $15 per carat. This price advantage directly drives a dramatic shift in market share: data from consulting firm Tenoris shows that lab-grown diamonds now account for 17% of the US retail market (by volume), up from just 3% in 2020. A survey by online wedding platform The Knot indicates that over half of respondents chose lab-grown diamond engagement rings, and this proportion is still climbing.
The rise of China’s lab-grown diamond industry is the result of combined geopolitical and technological evolution. After the Sino-Soviet split in the 1960s, Moscow cut off the supply of industrial diamonds. Lacking natural reserves, China was forced to turn to synthetic production, producing its first lab-grown diamond in 1963.
In the 1980s, an engineer established a factory in Zhecheng, Henan—then a chili pepper town—which gradually became the foundation of China’s diamond industry. For years, Zhecheng focused on producing industrial diamonds for applications like cutting tools, drill bits, and abrasives.
Zimnisky noted. It was only in the last decade that companies like Jiaruifu pivoted to the more profitable jewelry sector.
Technology and cost control are China’s core advantages. Most companies currently use the “High-Pressure High-Temperature” (HPHT) method for production, while an increasing number of manufacturers are turning to the “Chemical Vapor Deposition” (CVD) method to cultivate larger gemstones—growing diamonds layer by layer in a microwave chamber.
Global division of labor in the supply chain further reduces costs: after initial processing in China, diamonds are sent to Surat, India for polishing, where the cost per carat is only 86 yuan, far lower than the 400 yuan in China. They then enter the retail market via Antwerp or Dubai.
The equipment developed by Feng Canjun in cooperation with local manufacturers costs about 2 million yuan ($280,000), significantly lower than international levels. Coupled with relatively low industrial electricity costs—especially with state support—this gives China an advantage over Europe and the US.
evaluated gemstone consultant Robert Wake-Walker.
This advantage has extended to strategic areas. State-owned weapons manufacturer Norinco Group, besides its defense business, also operates in lab-grown diamonds and owns its own jewelry brand. Diamond’s hardness, thermal conductivity, and chemical inertness give it great potential in high-tech fields like lasers, optics, nuclear fusion, and even semiconductors, though most applications are still in their infancy, with strong growth expectations for technological uses.
Faced with the冲击, traditional diamond companies’ responses have been feeble. In 2018, De Beers founded Lightbox, a lab-grown diamond company, attempting to segment the market by mass-producing cheap synthetic gems to maintain the luxury positioning of natural diamonds.
Unexpectedly, this move triggered a price war, dragging down natural diamond prices. Coupled with declining marriage rates during the pandemic, by the end of 2024, De Beers’ unsold inventory reached $2 billion, a record high since the 2008 financial crisis. Lightbox ultimately closed this year.
The price war in the Chinese market became so intense that government intervention was needed. Henan province promoted the establishment of a diamond association, which in March set a minimum price of $15 per carat for 1 to 10-carat rough diamonds.
Feng Canjun explained. This policy aims to regulate industry order and alleviate the threat of overcapacity to established companies.
David Kellie, CEO of the Natural Diamond Council, attributed the price plunge to post-pandemic supply-demand imbalances, emphasizing that “the industry has always had cycles.” However, data struggles to support this claim: the US market share rising from 3% to 17%, and half of engagement rings choosing lab-grown diamonds, confirm RBC’s judgment—natural diamonds are suffering “permanent erosion.”
From the roar of machines in Henan factories to the changing choices at global jewelry counters, lab-grown diamonds are reshaping this millennia-old industry. When what the Earth creates over a billion years is mass-produced by Chinese enterprises in seven days, the future of the diamond industry is deeply imprinted with the mark of “Made in China.”
