Element Six seeks 'quantum' breakthrough with synthetic diamonds

The Element Six plant in Shannon was the first facility for De Beers outside South Africa.

International industrial diamonds maker Element Six – best known in Ireland for its long-established plant in Shannon, Co Clare – has caused a scientific stir after announcing a research linkup in the US with Amazon Web Services, or AWS, the huge data centre and cloud computing unit of the online shopping giant.

It’s unusual for any single research collaboration to attract any excitement whatsoever, but a host of mainstream and scientific journals worldwide jumped on the news that researchers at AWS in the US plan to work to develop or “grow” synthetic diamonds in a laboratory for purposes that would go well beyond the technology and uses that Element Six has been doing with synthetic crystals at its worldwide facilities.