Marvell Technology Inc and Lumentum Holdings Inc received support from NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang before reaching a merger and acquisition agreement worth nearly $103 billion.

According to people familiar with the matter, before the announcement of the transaction, Marvell CEO Matthew Murphy and Lumentum CEO Michael Hurlston sought advice from Jensen Huang over the phone. Since the relevant details have not yet been made public, the individuals familiar with the matter have requested to remain anonymous.

Jensen Huang's support highlights how AI leader NVIDIA encourages integration among major suppliers, as the demand for faster optical connections has become a bottleneck in the construction of increasingly large data centers. As a major chip supplier for training and running large language models, NVIDIA invested $2 billion each in Marvell and Lumentum earlier this year.

"I think NVIDIA's response has been very positive," Hurlston said in an interview with Fox Business earlier on Monday. "We believe that through this collaboration, we can bring more products to NVIDIA more quickly."

Representatives from NVIDIA, Marvell, and Lumentum did not immediately respond to requests for comments.

Marvell agrees to acquire Lumentum through a all-stock transaction worth $115 billion, including debt. This is the second-largest technology deal in history and also reflects that AI is actively facilitating the transaction. This acquisition will combine Marvell's custom chips with Lumentum's optical components.

According to people familiar with the matter, the two companies began discussing a potential merger this summer, and have been engaging in bilateral negotiations since then. The sources stated that Marvell and Lumentum initially planned to announce the deal simultaneously when Lumentum released its financial reports on Thursday, but decided to make the announcement ahead of time after the information was leaked.

“My views on the direction of world development are very similar to those of Mike,” Murphy said during a teleconference with investors discussing this transaction. “We have maintained contact in both our work and personal lives for a long time – Lumentum is a major client of Marvell. We have had a lot of interactions with their team, which ultimately led to this transaction.”