CITIC Securities: Diamond Heat Dissipation to Enter Industrialization Era in 2026
nashnova research
CITIC Securities says AI chip power draw will rise more than 6× in four years, pushing copper cooling to its physical limit. Diamond thermal management is set to enter mass commercialization in 2026, with a global market potentially reaching RMB 115 billion by 2030.
How severe is the AI chip heat problem?
Nvidia chip power draw climbed from 700 W (Hopper) to ~1,800 W (Rubin). The next generation, Feynman, is expected to hit 4,400 W — a 6×-plus jump in four years.
Local heat-flux density on-chip has breached 500 W/cm² and is heading toward 1,000 W/cm². This means → per-unit-area heat output is approaching the ceiling of what conventional materials can carry away.
Copper conducts heat at roughly 400 W/(m·K); diamond reaches 2,000–2,200 W/(m·K) — about 5× copper. In plain terms = copper can no longer keep up; diamond is the only material that can take over.
Where does the RMB 115 billion market figure come from?
CITIC estimates that AI chip lids, heat spreaders — metal bases that draw heat away from the die — cold plates, and optical modules will progressively switch from metal to diamond cooling.
By 2030, the global diamond-cooling market could reach RMB 115 billion, with a ~143% CAGR from 2027 to 2030.
This reflects a bet not on the known fact that diamond beats copper, but on the tipping point where manufacturing cost drops enough for volume adoption.
Where does diamond material itself stand today?
Diamond is advancing along three tiers: abrasive-grade → gem-grade → electronics-grade. Industrial-grade output accounts for 60% of value today; thermal-grade accounts for 22.6%, with momentum shifting toward functional grades.
China produces roughly 90% of the world's synthetic diamond, giving it the largest thermal-grade capacity reserve globally. This means → China dominates raw-material scale, but a gap remains between "can make diamond" and "can use it on chips."
CITIC expects 2026 to mark the leap from sample validation to volume orders, with flagship projects at multiple companies entering commercial ramp.
Who leads and who is catching up?
The landscape today: Element Six dominates, with Chinese, Japanese, and U.S. players in coopetition. Overseas firms lead in single-crystal diamond and TBR control — TBR (thermal boundary resistance) is the heat-transfer loss at the contact surface between diamond and chip.
Chinese producers are closing the gap through polycrystalline scale, composite processes, and lower electricity costs. In plain terms = China's edge is "volume + cheap power," but precision processes still lag.
The clearest gap is in bonding — the technique for firmly attaching a diamond sheet to a chip — and TBR control. These are the critical validation milestones for the commercialization thesis.
Where are the cost and risk bottlenecks?
CVD thermal-grade diamond wafers — thin diamond sheets grown by chemical vapor deposition for cooling — are still priced at the "per-gram" level, roughly an order of magnitude above copper-aluminum heat spreaders. Equipment depreciation and electricity cost reduction are the key levers.
MPCVD equipment — microwave plasma CVD, the core tool for growing diamond films — still needs breakthroughs in large-chamber design and magnetron technology.
Risks flagged by CITIC: customer qualification and bill-of-materials adoption falling short, concentrated capacity release compressing prices, high energy and equipment costs, trade and export controls, and competition from alternative materials such as silicon carbide.
How does CITIC suggest investors position?
Theme one: companies that are first to deliver small-batch thermal sheets, develop proprietary equipment, and lead on capacity scale.
Theme two: companies with large-format manufacturing plus full-chain capability, accelerating capacity expansion.
This means → CITIC's stock-picking logic comes down to one word — "first-mover": whoever ships diamond cooling to a chip maker first and ramps equipment and capacity first locks in the position.
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