OVER ONE MILLION CARATS, FROM ONE FACTORY

By Chinese industry estimates, the country has been producing well over 10 billion carats of diamond annually for almost a decade, but most of the products have gone to industrial use such as in abrasives.

Before foraying into consumer use, Chinese manufacturers provided them for aeronautics, oil rigs and electronic chips and honed their craft, said Hu Junheng, head of gemstone business at Henan Huanghe Whirlwind, which calls itself the world's largest synthetic diamond manufacturer with an annual production of 1.2 billion carats, mostly for industrial use.

As competition intensified and technology matured, these companies, mainly based in central China's Henan Province, have ventured from abrasives to jewelry.

The English-language "product list" of Henan Huanghe Whirlwind now starts with "superhard materials" and ends with "Lab-Grown Diamond (Gem Quality)".