Article · AI translation
IT Home reported on November 3 that, according to Bloomberg, the heads of Marvell Technology Inc. and Lumentum Holdings had secured the support of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang before finalizing their nearly $103 billion merger deal (IT Home note: approximately 686.535 billion yuan at the current exchange rate).
According to people familiar with the matter, whose details have not been made public, Marvell CEO Matthew Murphy and Lumentum CEO Michael Hurlston called Huang to seek his views before the deal was announced.
Huang expressed support. The episode also shows that demand for high-speed optical interconnections has become a bottleneck as ever-larger data centers are built, and that AI leader Nvidia is pushing for consolidation among its key suppliers. Nvidia is a major supplier of chips for training and running inference on large language models. Earlier this year, it invested $2 billion in each of Marvell and Lumentum (approximately 13.331 billion yuan each at the current exchange rate).
Earlier on Monday local time, Hurlston said in an interview with Fox Business: “Nvidia has been very positive. We believe that, after the two companies combine, we will be able to deliver more products to Nvidia, faster.”
Marvell agreed to acquire Lumentum in an all-stock deal valued at $115 billion including debt (approximately 766.52 billion yuan at the current exchange rate). It is also the second-largest merger and acquisition deal in the history of the technology industry, underscoring the wave of dealmaking driven by artificial intelligence. After the acquisition, Marvell’s custom chip business will be combined with Lumentum’s optical components business; optical components use light signals to transmit vast amounts of data between chips and servers.
After completing the deal, Marvell will become a more vertically integrated supplier of high-speed interconnection equipment. As major technology companies race to build larger, more powerful AI computing clusters, this type of equipment is becoming increasingly important.
People familiar with the matter said the two companies began discussing a merger this summer, with only the two sides involved throughout. They had originally planned to announce the deal alongside Lumentum’s earnings release on Thursday, but the plans leaked early, prompting them to change the announcement date.
Murphy said on an investor call discussing the deal: “Mike and I are highly aligned in our view of the industry’s future. We’ve had a personal and business relationship for a long time. Lumentum is itself a major Marvell customer, and our teams have communicated extensively, which ultimately led to this merger.”