India cuts and polishes 90 per cent of the world’s diamonds, both natural and synthetic

Much of cutting and polishing work happens in Surat in the western state of Gujarat, where lab-grown stones are now cut and polished alongside the mined stones. To move up the value chain, India is betting big on Chemical Vapour Deposition (CVD) technology, which is a cleaner, high-tech process used to grow diamonds layer by layer in controlled laboratory conditions.

Beyond affordability, lab-grown diamonds also do not carry the ethical baggage long associated with the mining industry, such as human rights abuses and environmental damage. Industry data suggests India’s lab-grown diamond market, currently worth about US$400 million, could more than triple to over US$1.5 billion within the next decade.