Korean lab-grown diamond maker KDT to build plant in India

South Korea’s sole lab-grown diamond producer KDT Diamond Co. will build its first overseas production facility in India by early next year to meet demand in the rapidly growing market, while expanding its domestic sales-focused business into other countries.

The company on Tuesday said it will break ground on a 2,000-square-meter lab-grown diamond manufacturing and polishing plant in India in November.

Once it is up and running from early March next year as scheduled, KDT will be capable of producing diamonds of 36,000 carats in its first year of operation.

Its production capacity will eventually increase to 100,000 carats a year, some of which the company said might be exported to other countries.

FROM TINY STORE TO LAB DIAMOND MAKER

KDT Diamond started in a 10-square-meter jewelry store in an underground shopping mall in Jamsil, southeastern Seoul, in 1987.

Its founder and KDT Diamond Chief Executive Kang Seung-gi imported rough diamonds because South Korea does not have diamond mines.

He commercialized and distributed these until before he began to create lab diamonds in 2021 in collaboration with Song Ohsung, a professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Seoul.

South Korea has now become the world’s eighth country to enter the market. 

Only eight countries in the world, including India, China and the US, produce lab-grown diamonds.

KDT Diamond creates synthetic diamonds in the chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method, in which a diamond seed is placed in a vacuum container and heated at a high temperature. The container is then filled with a mixture of gasses, including methane and oxygen, which forms a thin film on the seed.

Diamonds created with the CVD process have higher production efficiency than those made using the high temperature and high pressure (HTHP) method.

Last March, KDT Diamond opened a boutique for its lab-grown diamond brand ALOD in Hyundai Department Store at the World Trade Center in Seoul.

Lab-created diamonds have outstripped natural diamonds in terms of KDT's sales, accounting for 80% of its diamond sales since April this year.

“We could not meet the demand for lab-grown diamonds, which has increased significantly,” said Kang Seong-hyuk, a senior manager at KDT Diamond. “Once the Indian factory is operational, we will be able to secure sufficient quantities.”

Write to Ji-Yoon Yang at yang@hankyung.com
 


Yeonhee Kim edited this article