How ‘A.I’ is re-inventing diamond cutting

Synova, a Swiss company in which De Beers holds a stake of roughly a third produces laser technology for cutting hard materials, including diamonds. In 2020, it launched the DaVinci system, which can cut all 57 facets of a round brilliant diamond in one operation.

What this means is one operator can run 6 machines that will laser (burn) the 57 facets onto a diamond. Each machine can produce up to 12,000 carats of diamonds a year.

It is suggested that this will make cutting in the country of origin easier to set up.

The planning of the natural rough diamonds will probably still be done in Surat because they have the highly educated and trained math physics people that sometimes bash out a hundred options for cutting larger complex rough diamonds.

The polishing will still need to be done on all facets by hand, or perhaps auto (DiaLit etc) machines may still be used for the main facets?

That may mean sending the black burnt but already shaped diamonds to Surat for polishing. Or importing cutters to train local and indigenous teams.

This could reduce the manufacturing staffing by up to one third and reduce the required footprint.

Read more about the ‘Da Vinci’ Diamond cutting machine here