Foreword:

Luxury items 'abandoned' by young people have become the most sought-after strategic resources in the AI era.

From NVIDIA to TSMC, from the Zhengzhou Supercomputing Center to BYD, global tech giants are panic buying (frenziedly purchasing) diamonds.

Once known as the 'industrial teeth' for cutting glass, diamonds have now become the 'golden key' to unlocking the limits of AI computing power.

Author | Fang Wensan

Image Source | Internet

Solving the 'Overheating' Challenge in AI

Step into any modern data center, and you'll hear the deafening roar of fans. These fans aren't just for ventilating the servers; they're there to cool the chips.

With the rapid development of AI technology, the computational power of chips has grown exponentially, and so has their power consumption. The most top-tier AI chips now have a single-card power exceeding 1000 watts, equivalent to the power of a small household heater.

NVIDIA's planned Rubin architecture GPU, set to be released in the third quarter of 2026, will have an astonishing power consumption of 2300 watts.

Imagine concentrating all the heat emitted by a 2300-watt electric heater onto a silicon wafer no larger than a thumbnail.

If the heat isn't dissipated, the chip's temperature will skyrocket out of control, triggering frequency throttling for protection, or in severe cases, directly burning out.

To address this issue, cooling technologies have continuously upgraded from air cooling to liquid cooling, from water cooling to immersion cooling. However, these methods only solve the problem at the system level without addressing the root cause.

Traditional thermal materials have reached their physical limits. Copper has a thermal conductivity of about 380 W/m·K, aluminum about 200 W/m·K, and silicon about 150 W/m·K.

When the local heat flux density of a chip exceeds 1000 W/cm², the thermal conductivity of these materials can no longer meet the demand.

Heat dissipation has become the biggest bottleneck restricting the development of AI computing power. Jensen Huang has publicly stated on multiple occasions that the biggest challenge for AI development now is not computational power but heat dissipation capacity.

Every 1°C increase in chip operating temperature means a loss of computing power and a shortened lifespan.

This is like a highway where liquid cooling, cold plates, and air cooling solve traffic on the outer ring of the city, while diamond thermal spreaders solve the congestion at the chip's doorstep. Once the door is blocked, even the strongest external cooling system will struggle to perform at its full capacity.

Therefore, the higher the density of AI computing power, the more critical the role of thermal materials. The value of diamonds has shifted from jewelry counters to chip packaging and data center computer room (machine rooms).

Diamond Becomes the Hard Currency of AI Computing Power

In January 2026, TSMC simultaneously tested two AI chip cooling materials: silicon carbide and single-crystal diamond. Ultimately, single-crystal diamond was selected as the backside cooling solution for kilowatt-level power consumption AI chips. TSMC chose diamond over silicon carbide for its thermal patches.

At the 2026 GTC Conference, NVIDIA confirmed that the Rubin platform would adopt a liquid metal + diamond heat sink as the standard cooling solution for its 2300W-class GPUs.

In January 2026, Jensen Huang held talks with Chinese diamond enterprises to explore the application of diamond cooling and wafers in GPU architectures.

In February 2026, Akash Systems announced that it had delivered the world's first batch of NVIDIA H200 GPU servers equipped with Diamond Cooling technology to NxtGen Al Pvt Ltd, an Indian sovereign cloud service provider.

This marked the first global deployment of diamond thermal conductivity technology in commercial AI server systems, achieving a 15% increase in computing power.

Domestically, according to Xinhua Finance, diamond-copper composite materials have recently been applied on a large scale at the Zhengzhou Supercomputing Center, improving the heat transfer capacity of chip modules by 80%, enhancing chip performance by 10%, and reducing temperatures by 5°C.

This marked the first large-scale adoption of diamond-copper composite materials in China, signaling that diamond cooling materials have moved out of the lab and into the Large scale procurement (mass procurement) lists of mainstream data center suppliers.

China Galaxy Securities pointed out that diamond is currently the only material that can be applied at the node level, packaging level, and module level. In scenarios where single-chip power consumption exceeds 1400 watts, diamond is a must-have option.

The Path of Diamond Materials into the AI Industry Chain

① As thermal spreaders or heat sinks, used for thermal management of high-power devices such as AI chips, HPC chips, and RF devices.

These materials are typically placed between chips, packaging, substrates, or cooling systems to perform the tasks of 'rapid heat conduction' and 'uniform heat spreading.'

For high-power chips, a few degrees reduction in hotspot temperature can mean more stable frequencies, lower failure rates, and longer device lifespans.

② Diamond Cooling-class server-level solutions no longer view diamond as just a single material but incorporate it into the overall thermal management architecture of the entire machine.

As the power consumption of AI servers continues to rise, heat dissipation has evolved from a single-chip issue to a problem for entire racks, machine rooms, and even entire data centers. The integration of diamond thermal conductivity materials into system solutions means they are moving from lab metrics to real-world deployments.

③ Power semiconductors and RF devices: Wide-bandgap or ultra-wide-bandgap materials like GaN, SiC, and gallium oxide offer significant advantages in high-frequency, high-voltage, and high-power scenarios, but they also pose significant thermal management challenges.

Combining GaN with diamond, using diamond as a thermal substrate or thermal spreader, is a long-term exploration direction for the industry.

In AI data centers, power conversion, RF communication, optical module driving, and power electronics systems all demand higher efficiency in thermal management, giving diamond the opportunity to move from 'behind the chip' into broader system-level energy chains.

④ Diamond semiconductors themselves: Strictly speaking, the current industrialization focus remains on 'diamond for cooling and thermal management.' Diamond wafers and diamond transistors have not yet reached the mature, large-scale stage like silicon or SiC, facing challenges in epitaxial growth, doping, defect control, size, and cost.

However, in the long term, diamond's characteristics of ultra-wide bandgap, high breakdown field strength, and high thermal conductivity make it one of the candidates for next-generation extreme-power devices.

The value logic of diamonds varies greatly depending on the system they enter.

Domestic Industrial Advantages and Henan's Core Strength

China is the world's largest producer of diamonds, accounting for over 90% of global industrial diamond capacity.

In this wave of diamond cooling industrialization, Henan enterprises have taken center stage.

Zhengzhou Sino-Crystal Diamond, Yellow River Whirlwind, Huifeng Diamond, and SFD are frequently mentioned names in the capital market, all with their headquarters or core production capacities in Henan.

Zhecheng County in Henan is known as the 'Diamond Capital of China,' boasting a complete industrial chain from diamond single crystals and micropowders to finished products, with deep accumulations in both high-pressure high-temperature (HPHT) and chemical vapor deposition (CVD) processes.

In May 2026, China's largest eight-inch diamond heat sink officially entered mass production, with the production workshop becoming operational.

Chinese enterprises have achieved mass production of 8-inch heat sinks and 12-inch wafers, ranking first globally in both capacity and technology.

China has also made key breakthroughs in the localization of core equipment, MPCVD (Microwave Plasma Chemical Vapor Deposition).

Multiple enterprises and research institutes have successfully developed high-power MPCVD equipment, breaking overseas monopolies and increasing crystal growth rates by several times or even tens of times compared to traditional levels.

Large-scale investments have brought significant cost competitiveness. The price of domestically produced diamond heat sinks is only 30% to 50% of that of overseas counterparts, with diamond-copper composite materials being even cheaper.

As production capacity is released, costs will further decrease, accelerating penetration into markets such as data centers and new energy vehicles.

In October 2025, China implemented new export control regulations for superhard materials, marking diamond's elevation from a mere industrial abrasive to a national strategic resource.

This move not only safeguards the supply chain security of the domestic AI industry but also enhances China's voice in the global semiconductor industry chain.

The Vast Future Applications

The application of diamond in AI cooling is just the beginning. As the 'ultimate semiconductor material,' diamond's application prospects extend far beyond.

In the power electronics field, diamond devices can operate at higher voltages, temperatures, and frequencies, significantly improving energy efficiency in new energy vehicles, power grids, and rail transit. BYD has officially announced the mass production of automotive-grade diamond products.

In the RF field, GaN-on-Diamond RF chips can achieve higher power density and better heat dissipation performance, with broad application prospects in 5G/6G communications, radar, and satellites.

In the quantum computing field, nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamonds are currently one of the most promising qubits, capable of quantum operations at room temperature, potentially driving the practicalization of quantum computing.

In the energy field, diamond batteries can generate electricity from the decay energy of radioactive isotopes, with a lifespan of thousands of years, providing long-lasting energy supply for deep-space exploration, pacemakers, and other scenarios.

Conclusion:

The diamond abandoned by love has not lost its value; it has simply found a more hardcore stage.

It will happen in wafer fabs, packaging plants, server rooms, and data center cooling systems—places without roses or vows, only power consumption, thermal resistance, yield rates, and computing power density.

Partial References: Sina Finance: 'Diamond Cooling: The Key to Unlocking AI Potential | Kaiyuan Securities Machinery,' East Money: 'CCTV Sets the Tone + BYD Mass Production + Giants Follow + Domestic Breakthroughs: Four Signals Resonate, Making 2026 the Breakout Year for the Diamond Industry,' Superhard Materials Network: 'China's Diamond Semiconductors: Leading the World in AI Cooling, High-End Substrates Still Need to Catch Up,' Snowball: 'VestLab Research Report: Fourth-Generation Semiconductor Diamond—The Ultimate Material and Industrialization Journey in the Post-Moore Era'