.Marvell Technology is reportedly close to finalizing a cash-and-stock acquisition of Celestial AI, a fast-rising chip startup specializing in photonics-based interconnects, according to a report by The Information that cites people familiar with the talks. The potential deal—described as being in the “multiple billions”—could exceed $5 billion once performance-based earnouts are included and may be announced as early as Tuesday.

Neither Marvell nor Celestial AI responded to requests for comment, and Reuters has not independently verified the report. Still, the discussions signal the intensifying race among semiconductor firms to secure technologies that can ease the bandwidth and performance bottlenecks created by booming demand for AI computing power.

Marvell, valued at about $78.5 billion and a major provider of networking and custom silicon, has been competing aggressively with larger rivals such as Broadcom for dominance in the data-center and cloud-infrastructure markets. Acquiring Celestial AI would deepen Marvell’s portfolio in high-speed interconnects—an area becoming critical as AI workloads increasingly rely on rapid links between accelerator chips and memory.

Celestial AI has attracted significant industry attention. Backed in part by an investment arm of AMD, the company raised $250 million in March, bringing total funding to $515 million. Its board includes high-profile industry names such as Intel veteran and venture investor Lip-Bu Tan. The startup’s core technology uses photonics—transmitting data with light instead of electricity—to build ultra-fast, low-energy connections across advanced AI systems.

If completed, the acquisition would mark another major consolidation move in the semiconductor sector, underscoring how strategically important high-bandwidth chip-to-memory links have become for next-generation AI architectures.