AI is helping create ultra-pure lab-grown diamonds that could cool powerful chips today—but could they one day become semiconductor materials for future electronics?
Y Combinator-backed startup Kara Labs is using artificial intelligence (AI) to develop ultra-high-purity lab-grown diamonds with the long-term goal of making them a semiconductor material, while commercialising diamond-based thermal management solutions for AI infrastructure today.
Speaking exclusively to Electronics For You, Aarin Jhaveri, Founder of Kara Labs, said that the company’s immediate focus is helping solve overheating in high-power electronics, but its larger vision is to make diamond itself an electronic material. “We’re starting with thermal management. In the future, we want to make diamond a semiconductor itself,” Aarin said.
The startup grows synthetic diamonds using microwave plasma chemical vapour deposition (MPCVD) and is currently producing single-crystal diamond substrates of up to 30 mm × 30 mm, with larger sizes still limited by current manufacturing equipment. A major differentiator for the company is its AI-driven materials development platform.
Diamond’s thermal conductivity of up to 2,200 W/mK, more than five times that of copper, allows it to dissipate heat away from localised hotspots more efficiently, lowering chip junction temperatures, improving reliability and extending device lifetime. In artificial intelligence (AI) servers, it could also reduce dependence on liquid cooling in some applications. “I think a lot of people are focused on the thermal management side of it. But they should be looking into making diamond a semiconductor itself—and making it reliably,” Aarin said.
The company expects adoption to grow as AI processors continue to increase in power density and conventional materials approach their thermal limits. However, high manufacturing costs and the inability to mass-produce large-area single-crystal diamond wafers remain major barriers to widespread adoption.
While the company’s thermal management products are moving toward commercial deployment, diamond-based semiconductors remain a longer-term goal. Kara Labs believes conventional materials such as copper are approaching their thermal limits as AI processors continue to increase in power density, creating an opportunity for engineered diamond materials.
The company says its long-term vision is to position engineered diamond as both a thermal management material and, eventually, a semiconductor platform for future high-power electronic devices.
