As technology reshapes the diamond industry, new tools are emerging to verify a stone’s identity and origin with a level of accuracy and precision the trade has never seen before. This panel explores how artificial intelligence and advanced nanoparticle-based tracing are transforming diamond authentication, provenance tracking, and supply-chain transparency, and how these advancements are saving the industry money while securing its future.
The discussion features Dr. Daniel Nyfeler, Managing Director of Gübelin Gem Lab, speaking to their work under the Provenance Proof initiative, and Janak Mistry, Founder, Managing Director, and Group CEO of Lexus SoftMac and the Lexus Group of Companies, on DiaDNA – the company’s atomic-level diamond identification solution. The panel will be moderated by luxury journalist and author Richa Goyal Sikri, who has extensively researched and written on the subject.
Together, the panelists will examine how these innovations are helping the trade and consumers identify diamonds with greater confidence in an increasingly complex marketplace, enhance profitability, and open new business avenues sustainably.
“The diamond industry has spent years building systems to trace information through the supply chain. But information alone cannot guarantee authenticity. Every digital record, certificate, or passport ultimately depends on one critical assumption: that it still belongs to the same diamond. Finally, the industry has started to move beyond tracing data, verifying the material itself. Leading companies are already doing so, successfully applying this approach at scale, including on large volumes of melee diamonds. The next generation of trust will be built on solutions that create an inseparable link between a diamond and its documented journey, turning traceability from a chain of records into a scientifically verifiable fact,” Dr. Daniel Nyfeler, Managing Director, Gübelin Gem Lab, noted.
“Diamond provenance today rests on two fragile ideas: optical scans that can be altered, and a supplier’s word. But a diamond’s true identity is written at the atomic level, and it survives even when the stone is cut and polished. DiaDNA reads the diamond’s signature (its own DNA) and matches a polished stone back to its mother rough with 90–92% laboratory accuracy due to sufficient signature overlap. For the first time, provenance is not declared. It is proven by the diamond itself,” – Janak Mistry, Founder, Managing Director, and Group CEO, Lexus SoftMac and the Lexus Group of Companies, said.
“We have spent decades in this industry talking about provenance and trust, and for just as long, both have rested on paperwork and relationships. What excites me about this conversation is that we are finally at a point where science is doing the heavy lifting. The diamond itself is becoming the proof. That is not a small shift, it is a fundamental change in how this industry will operate, and I believe the businesses that understand that earliest will have a significant advantage, ”Richa Goyal Sikri, Luxury Journalist & Author, concluded.
at the 41st World Diamond Congress for a fascinating panel with Guebelin’s Daniel Nyfelder and Lexus’ Janak Mistry, on July 14, from 03:00 p.m. to 03:45 p.m.
