Diamond & Quantum Weekly | Sep 14–20, 2026

The reporting window runs from 00:00 Beijing time on September 14 to 23:59 on September 20, 2026.

Weekly signal

Three points are worth remembering this week.

First, policy language became more specific. An electronics-manufacturing plan for the 15th Five-Year period explicitly called for the industrialization of ultra-wide-bandgap semiconductors including gallium oxide and diamond. The national 15th Five-Year Plan outline released in March did not mention diamond, gallium oxide or ultra-wide-bandgap semiconductors by name. The new sector plan is therefore not a simple repetition of the national outline; it turns the direction into a more concrete industry task.

Second, public statements from thermal-management companies continued to converge toward a more cautious description of the market. Sifangda referred to small-batch test orders, China North Industries Group mainly described small-batch supply to universities and research institutes, and Jiangsu Chujiang New Materials said its own diamond-composite heat-sink material remains in development. The evidence still supports a validation or early-order phase rather than rapid volume ramp-up.

Third, the genuinely new point in Southern Power Grid’s NV diamond quantum current sensor story is a manufacturing and commercialization milestone. Its core specifications and first engineering deployment were disclosed earlier: the 1 mA–10 kA range and 0.06% full-scale accuracy were announced in January 2025, and the system entered service at the Liuzhou converter station in April 2025. The new September update is that a fully autonomous engineered product had run stably for more than 2,000 hours at the Dali Xinsong converter station and had entered batch production and commercial-order stages.

1. The 15th Five-Year electronics-manufacturing plan names diamond

On September 15, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the National Development and Reform Commission published the 15th Five-Year Plan for the Development of the Electronics Manufacturing Industry. It calls for upgrading the wide-bandgap semiconductor industry and promoting the industrialization of ultra-wide-bandgap semiconductors such as gallium oxide and diamond.

The statement appears within the plan’s integrated-circuit full-chain technology tasks. Its policy target is ultra-wide-bandgap semiconductors.

The distinction from the national 15th Five-Year Plan outline released in March matters. The outline did not contain these specific material names. The sector plan therefore provides a more specific industrial-policy expression rather than merely repeating the national document.

2. Southern Power Grid’s quantum current sensor: production, not first deployment

In January 2025, Southern Power Grid announced a first-of-its-kind ±800 kV ultra-high-voltage DC quantum current sensor, with a measurement range of 1 mA–10 kA and 0.06% full-scale accuracy. In April 2025, the system entered formal operation at the Liuzhou converter station of the Kunliulong DC project.

The new milestone is that a fully autonomous engineered product was deployed at the Dali Xinsong converter station in Yunnan in June 2026 and had operated stably for more than 2,000 hours by September. The product then formally entered mass production, with commercial orders reported.

The more accurate timeline is:

2025 prototype qualification and first deployment → 2026 engineering replication → production this week.

The reports identify NV-center diamond as the core sensing material. But “mass production” should not be read automatically as large-scale capacity or a long stream of orders. Delivery volume, deployment at additional stations, cost and the material supply chain remain open questions.

3. Thermal-management companies continue to cool their public language

On September 16, Sifangda said that its CVD diamond heat spreaders had passed customer testing and secured small-batch test orders. This is more restrained than the September 8 description of entering a small-batch supply stage. Order value, customer identity, unit count and repeat purchase remain undisclosed.

China North Industries Group further clarified that its functional diamond products are currently supplied mainly in small batches to universities and research institutes. The main route is MPCVD, with product directions including single-crystal heat-spreader substrates and optical windows.

Jiangsu Chujiang New Materials also drew a clear distinction: its special thermal equipment has been applied in the diamond heat-dissipation field, while the company’s diamond-composite heat-sink material remains in development.

The three companies follow different routes and should not be compared as if they offered identical products. Their public disclosures do, however, point in the same direction: the available evidence is not yet enough to support the claim that AI cooling has entered a broad volume ramp.

4. CVD diamond and MPCVD

On September 17, Peking University’s State Key Laboratory of Micron and Nano Processing Technology launched a second public tender for an 8-inch diamond MPCVD system. The original government-procurement notice confirms a budget of RMB 10.0744 million, a maximum bid price of RMB 7 million and an opening date of October 13. The equipment is intended for wafer-scale diamond deposition and functionalization research at the 8-inch level.

This is research-equipment procurement information. Eight inches describes the equipment and process-development requirement; it does not mean that 8-inch single-crystal diamond has reached mass production.

5. Quantum technology

Diamond NV cardiac-magnetic research: formal publication

On September 16, Science Advances formally published “Human cardiac measurements with diamond magnetometers.” Three teams used room-temperature diamond NV magnetometers to record the magnetic field of the human heart.

The accurate boundary is that this is the first measurement of cardiac magnetic signals in humans using a diamond NV magnetometer, not the first realization of magnetocardiography. Hundreds to thousands of heartbeats still need to be averaged, so the work remains a proof of concept.

The result had already appeared as arXiv:2601.18843 on January 26, 2026. The new event this week is peer-reviewed publication.

Room-temperature four-qubit NV entanglement: another publication milestone

On September 14, Nature Nanotechnology formally published a room-temperature NV quantum-register study. A parallel four-qubit GHZ gate took 14.8 μs, roughly one-tenth of the sequential approach, with a fidelity of 0.92(4).

This result had previously appeared as arXiv:2508.08465 on August 11, 2025. The new development this week is formal publication in Nature Nanotechnology, not the first public release of the experiment.

6. Conferences and industry activity

On September 22, Hefei will host a forum on high-quality diamond development and advanced-ceramics applications. The current agenda is oriented more toward industry exchange and investment leads, so it should not yet be assigned technical-progress weight.

On September 26, Xiamen University and Flink Qiming’s industrial-chain program plan a closed workshop on diamond applications in microchannels, liquid cooling and chip-level extreme-thermal-management scenarios. For thermal-management research, the more valuable evidence will be any post-event feedback from end users on cost, interfaces, reliability and system-level temperature reduction.

7. Social-media observation

The NV cardiac-magnetic paper received significant attention on international social platforms this week, although the research itself had already been available as a preprint in January.

8. What to watch next

• Southern Power Grid’s quantum current sensor: batch-delivery volume, deployment at more converter stations, cost and the NV-diamond supply chain.
• Whether Sifangda’s “small-batch test orders” turn into repeat purchases, stable supply and identifiable revenue.
• Whether China North Industries Group reports device makers, packaging companies or end customers beyond universities and research institutes.
• The result of Peking University’s 8-inch MPCVD tender on October 13.
• Whether the 15th Five-Year electronics-manufacturing plan leads to dedicated tasks, pilot platforms or device-validation projects for ultra-wide-bandgap semiconductors based on diamond.