Go Power Technologies, an Indian deeptech startup was the first in the world to predict and demonstrate that carbon was capable of designer lattice structures.
In 2015, the materials science world was surprised by the discovery of a new phase of carbon called Q-Carbon (Quenched Carbon). The discovery was made by Prof. Jagdish Narayan, an alumnus of IIT Kanpur.
And for this, he deserves the next Nobel in physics.
In 2020, Go Power, a deeptech startup started studying Q carbon with the objective of addressing three markets – energy storage, data centre photonics and Ultra clear diamond slab fabrication at room temperature and pressure.
For decades, we were taught that carbon primarily exists in two major forms: graphite and diamond. Later we added fullerenes, nanotubes and graphene to the family. Graphene got a Nobel.
Q-Carbon proposes something even more intriguing.
It is created by melting amorphous carbon with a high-energy laser and then rapidly cooling it within nanoseconds. This ultrafast “quenching” produces a unique atomic structure that does not resemble conventional diamond or graphite. What makes Q-Carbon remarkable are its reported properties:
• Potentially harder than diamond
• Ferromagnetic
• Capable of light emission
• Can enable diamond growth at room temperature and ambient pressure
Q carbon could transform multiple industries:
• Advanced electronics
• High-performance coatings
• Quantum and magnetic materials
• Low-cost diamond manufacturing
• Next-generation sensors and photonics
Breakthrough materials often emerge not from entirely new elements, but from discovering new phases of familiar ones. Carbon continued to surprise —from graphite and diamond to graphene to nanotubes and then to Q-Carbon.
Go Power figured out that carbon had a long way to go. What it did was to put together a team of three – the best semiconductor photonics expert, the best ai expert and the best chemical engineering plant scale up expert. The idea was to figure out how to make designer carbon lattices at scale. Not in kilograms or tons but in tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of tons. The impact was understood, the functionality verified, the use cases demonstrated. Now it was about scale, price and consistency in mass manufacturing.
And in Feb 2025 they finally had the road map ready. At first, they looked at the large Indian majors. The conglomerates. But they demonstrated a lethal combination of poor governance, pathetic foresight and disastrous leadership.
There were two paths. Migrate overseas or run in India to the finish line on their own. They chose the latter.
Innovation today is not confined by geography or capital. It is sheer nonsense to suggest that no one can beat America or China in AI simply because no one else can invest that much money.
As they would say in Bollywood.
Abhi to Kahani shuru hui hai.
