41. Interview: Arya Akhavan returns! Growing Exotic and Novel Lab Sapphires

So I have a feeling that a lot of, particularly with like diamond production and lab and synthetic gem production in general, is they sort of sell these, the gem varieties, because it's like a way of making money whilst they actually have a long-term ambition to produce stuff for industrial applications.

Yeah.

would you say that's true

100 that's the case for diamond that was definitely the case for certain types of like sapphire and spinel production as well and then there are some that have like absolutely no relevance to industry like growing emerald it's totally useless for like an industrial material it just it looks really cool and people want it but you look at diamond like semiconductors supercomputers even just like exactly cooling like heating and cooling

Which is going to become increasingly important in today's world, I must say.

Coming off of London's hottest.

Yeah, I was going to say, you guys out in Europe have had a very toasty time.

We have suffered, Aria.

But so has everyone else, to be fair.

I mean...

Yeah.

I mean, I think the labs are so invested in producing giant blocks of diamond that we're going to see the prices drop substantially, like even more over the next couple of years.

I think the estimated floor for lab diamond per carat prices is like 40.

I mean, we're not a million miles away from that now.

Probably like, yeah, still a fair bit more than that.

Yeah.

But yeah, no, I mean, that is wild, isn't it? Because like when this all blew up not so long ago, these things were selling for a fair few quid and that wasn't that long ago.

Yeah.

It was like exclusive almost.

And now I'm waiting to get my 10 carat fake engagement ring then.

As you'd be able to buy it for 50 pounds.

Exactly.

I mean, eventually it's like the same thing that happened

with cubic zirconia.

It's like started out super expensive.

So I have a feeling that a lot of, particularly with like diamond production and lab and synthetic gem production in general, is they sort of sell these, the gem varieties, because it's like a way of making money whilst they actually have a long-term ambition to produce stuff for industrial applications.

Yeah.

would you say that's true

100 that's the case for diamond that was definitely the case for certain types of like sapphire and spinel production as well and then there are some that have like absolutely no relevance to industry like growing emerald it's totally useless for like an industrial material it just it looks really cool and people want it but you look at diamond like semiconductors supercomputers even just like exactly cooling like heating and cooling

Which is going to become increasingly important in today's world, I must say.

Coming off of London's hottest.

Yeah, I was going to say, you guys out in Europe have had a very toasty time.

We have suffered, Aria.

But so has everyone else, to be fair.

I mean...

Yeah.

I mean, I think the labs are so invested in producing giant blocks of diamond that we're going to see the prices drop substantially, like even more over the next couple of years.

I think the estimated floor for lab diamond per carat prices is like 40.

I mean, we're not a million miles away from that now.

Probably like, yeah, still a fair bit more than that.

Yeah.

But yeah, no, I mean, that is wild, isn't it? Because like when this all blew up not so long ago, these things were selling for a fair few quid and that wasn't that long ago.

Yeah.

It was like exclusive almost.

And now I'm waiting to get my 10 carat fake engagement ring then.

As you'd be able to buy it for 50 pounds.

Exactly.

I mean, eventually it's like the same thing that happened

with cubic zirconia.

It's like started out super expensive.