Why Lab Diamonds Will Never be Cheap to Manufacture
Large, high quality lab diamonds require that CVD and HPHT machines run for several weeks or months non-stop while there is still a high failure rate. That means significant opportunity and operational costs for growers that keep the cost of lab diamonds
Lastly, it is far cheaper to mine diamonds that you would think. De Beers self-reported costs to mine diamonds was $104 per carat (for rough diamonds). It is Ada Diamonds' position that the marginal cost to grow each diamond in a laboratory will always be greater than the cost for De Beers and other mining operations to dig diamonds out of the Earth, and the costs to cut, polish, and grade diamonds is exactly the same, regardless of the origin: grown or mined.