Diamond Foundry has started building its second factory producing single-crystal diamond chips, its first in Europe. Located in Trujillo (Cáceres) the venture's price tag is estimated at 850 million USD or 800 million euros, and will be powered entirely by photovoltaic solar energy.

The US company expects to start production in 2025, scaled up to 10 million carats per annum once it reaches its full capacity. The plant will focus on producing industrial diamonds that can be used for semiconductors, and for which it will produce its own single-crystal diamond chips, as well as traditional diamonds suitable for jewellery.

Patented technology
The plasma reactors developed and patented by the company are designed to produce wafer-sized single-crystal diamond chips by crystallising greenhouse gases, predominantly methane. According to Diamond Foundry, its properties surpass those of silicon and other semiconductors, with unprecedented power density, speed, and performance.

This advantage makes these diamonds ideal for use in next-generation industries such as cloud computing, artificial intelligence, 5G and 6G networks and electric cars. The superior potential of diamond over silicon is a long-known fact, although it has been an expensive, rare material. Synthetic production has now made it available to industry at a competitive price.

Sustainable, autonomous energy
The company has confirmed that it will be one of the first industrial projects in the world powered entirely by solar electricity. The other foundry, in Washington (USA), uses 100% hydropower which, they explain, is a more limited resource than solar photovoltaic power, and which is “extremely plentiful” and abundant in Extremadura.

As part of the company's commitment to sustainable production, the objective is to show that solar energy can work autonomously on an industrial scale. The plans incorporate a 120-megawatt solar plant supported by battery storage. Solar panels will be housed on the land surrounding the future facility and will be operated by Powergen, Diamond Foundry's energy partner for this project.

Diamond Foundry is also offering to buy methane from industries that emit this gas into the atmosphere in order to reduce the greenho