Element Six (E6), a company owned by the De Beers Group known for its diamond mines, launched a copper-plated diamond composite material designed to improve cooling efficiency. According to E6, this new solution is meant for applications such as artificial intelligence (AI), high-performance computers (HPC), and GaN RF devices, all producing a lot of heat.
“Thermal management for semiconductor devices remains a significant challenge as power levels increase and packaging continues to advance, “says E6 Chief Technologies Daniel Twitchen. “Our copper diamond composite addresses these challenges by offering a scalable and affordable solution for next-generation AI and HPC devices. This innovation empowers our customers to enhance performance and reliability, while reducing cooling costs.”
Whether natural or synthetic, diamonds are electrical insulators. However, they’re also significantly more thermally conductive than copper, making them ideal for a heatsink that could transfer thermal energy more efficiently than traditional materials. Because diamonds are prohibitively expensive, research using this material is often limited to industrial and high-end applications.
Since E6 is a De Beers company, which used to have a monopoly on the global diamond supply, it would have no issues finding the diamond material it needs to build this composite material. A startup called Akash Systems is considering using diamond material for cooling GPUs, but it’s still asking for $18.2 million in CHIPS and Science Act funding to continue working on it.
If this copper-diamond composite ever hits the market, it will likely be offered first to AI data centers. These centers use a lot of power to cool their GPUs and processors. This composite would hopefully make cooling far more efficient, reducing the electricity consumption of these sites, which are already straining the national grid.
Furthermore, suppose its mass production pushes prices down further, making it a reasonable purchase for enthusiasts. In that case, we might soon get high-power PC components, like the RTX 5090, arriving in a smaller, more compact form factor. This would be a boon to small form factor fans, as they could finally get the best of both worlds—a compact PC with the power of a full-sized tower desktop.
