Broadcom, the semiconductor giant, is in talks to acquire VMware, according to a person familiar with the matter.
A deal is not yet final, said the person on Sunday night, who was not authorized to publicly discuss it. Bloomberg first reported the talks.
A potential takeover of VMware would give Broadcom a bigger presence in cloud computing, where VMware partners with Amazon Web Services, the market leader. It would mark a new focus for Broadcom, which is run by the highly acquisitive chief executive Hock E. Tan.
Broadcom, which was based in Singapore but has moved its headquarters to San Jose, Calif., initially bought mostly other chip companies. But since its $117 billion deal to buy the U.S. chip maker Qualcomm was blocked in March 2018 by President Donald J. Trump on national security concerns, Broadcom has diversified its targets. It bought the software company CA Technologies for $18.9 billion later that year and a security division of Symantec for $10.7 billion in 2019.
VMware, which was spun off from Dell Technologies last November, is known for making virtualization software, which allows one computer to act like many machines and essentially makes computing more efficient. It has also diversified and makes a range of software for data centers.
VMware’s stock rose 20 percent in premarket trading on Monday, valuing the company at about $48 billion. Shares in Broadcom, which is worth more than $200 billion, fell 4 percent.