Gao Shuhui, administrative director of Carbon Research Chips Material (Xinjiang) Technology Co., Ltd., displays a ring set with a two-carat lab-grown diamond at a factory in Kashgar, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Aug. 12, 2025. (Xinhua/Tan Yixiao)

by Xinhua Writer Tan Yixiao

URUMQI, Sept. 7 (Xinhua) -- It turned out to be the longest trip I had ever taken inside China. It was a journey that transported me deep into arid plains, where diamonds glitter in the most unexpected places.

Before dawn in Beijing, I dragged myself onto a plane heading west. Over five hours later, I landed in Kashgar, one of China's westernmost cities located in the northwestern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. From there, a three-hour drive carried me to Shache County on the edge of China's largest desert, the Taklimakan.

By the time I rolled into Shache, the sun was blazing overhead, drenching the town in gold. Traditionally famous for almonds and walnuts, this county is now home to China's largest single-site lab-grown diamond factory employing Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) technology.

The factory, Carbon Research Chips Material (Xinjiang) Technology Co., Ltd., has 678 production lines and an annual output exceeding one billion yuan (about 140.7 million U.S. dollars). Plans for a second phase envision more than 1,500 lines -- which, at full capacity, could churn out 500,000 carats a year, roughly 15 percent of the global lab-grown diamond market.

Inside the factory, I met Abdurahman Tursun, who was carefully guiding a gem across a spinning wheel.

"I'm the one they call when there's a problem," he said with quiet pride.

For Abdurahman, the job has been life-changing. A fresh graduate of a local technical college in electrical work, he first learned about the factory from a teacher, who said the company offered internships that could lead to full-time jobs.

There was a catch, though -- training took place over 4,500 kilometers away in east China's Anhui Province.

"It was my first time leaving Xinjiang," he recalled. "Everything felt different, but people there treated us warmly. On holidays of the Uygur ethnic group, they even put on performances just for us."

Three months later, he returned to Shache armed with new skills and a stable job in hand. Now he earns about 4,000 yuan a month, and has become his family's main breadwinner -- helping to support his truck-driver father, stay-at-home mother and three younger sisters.

"They're proud of me working in a diamond factory," he said. "If not for this, maybe I'd be driving a truck with my father."

For him, the job is not just about a paycheck. It is also about hope. "I want to enhance my skills, save some money and take my family to Shanghai," he said. "I've watched the city's views countless times in short videos, and I want to see it with my own eyes one day."

It's no coincidence that his dream points to Shanghai, for this very factory was built under Shanghai's "pairing assistance" program -- part of a nationwide initiative launched in 1997 to channel financial, technical and human resource support in various fields to Xinjiang from other regions of China.

"People don't expect high-tech industries in a remote county," explained Li Ye, a Shanghai official posted in Shache on a three-year assignment to support the factory's development. "But this creates jobs and changes lives."

According to Li, Shanghai has provided 120 million yuan in aid funds to build the factory. In the near term, it will generate demand for around 500 local jobs, while in the long run, the employment potential could reach approximately 40,000 positions.

The factory's administrative director, Gao Shuhui, said that with a population of nearly one million, Shache has no shortage of workers.

"Another advantage is electricity, it is the single biggest cost in making lab-grown diamonds, accounting for roughly 70 percent of total production costs," Gao explained. "In Shache, however, abundant clean energy keeps costs at roughly half the average compared to other inland regions of China. That's why the project works."

Notably, the economics sparkle almost as much as the gems themselves in this region.

"A one-carat CVD lab-grown (loose) diamond trades at around 2,500 yuan, while a natural diamond of similar quality can cost more than ten times as much," said Gao, who was wearing a two-carat ring as she spoke. I caught myself thinking -- lucky her!

But don't mistake "lab-grown" for fake. Diamonds are collections of carbon atoms that have typically been exposed to high pressure and high temperatures, which bond to form a crystalline structure.

To the naked eye, a lab-grown diamond looks identical to a natural stone. The difference? Well, while Mother Nature takes a billion years, a human-orchestrated process creates a diamond in a matter of weeks.

Watching the factory hum and seeing young locals like Abdurahman carve out new opportunities, I left convinced that the remote county of Shache was ready to catch the diamond light. ■