• Broadcom has received the necessary regulatory approval to go ahead with its acquisition of VMware.
• The deal faced opposition in China, with some restrictions now in place in order to push the deal through.
• Once complete, the acquisition will be one of the biggest in the tech industry to date at $69 billion.

2023 is shaping up to be the year of blockbuster tech deals, with Broadcom confirming that it has received the regulatory approval to go ahead with its acquisition of VMware.

Once completed, the deal will be one of the biggest in financial terms in the tech industry to date, with Broadcom paying $69 billion for the US cloud computing specialists.

The deal has taken quite a bit of time to get over the line, as it faced the same sort of regulatory scrutiny that Microsft’s purchase of Activision Blizzard did, with watchdogs in the EU and China in particular wanting to know more.

In fact, regarding the latter nation, Broadcom has had to agree to some restrictions that were imposed by the Chinese regulator earlier this week. “VMWare server software should work with local hardware and the deal should not restrict customers from purchasing and using Broadcom’s hardware products such as storage adapters” the Chinese regulator confirmed in a statement per Reuters.

The reason for the prolonged negotiations stems from ongoing economic tensions between the US China.

“Broadcom has received legal merger clearance in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, the European Union, Israel, Japan, South Africa, South Korea, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and foreign investment control clearance in all necessary jurisdictions. There is no legal impediment to closing under U.S. merger regulations,” the company shared this week in a brief update.

“We are excited to welcome VMware to Broadcom and bring together our engineering-first, innovation-centric teams,” it added.

As for what this deal will potential mean moving forward, it brings together two major players in the cloud computing area, with Broadcom on the hardware side and VMware on software, with its expertise in virtualisation in particular being significant.

As Engadget points out, the new version of Broadcom following the completion of the deal will be a company that it critical to how people access the internet, which is saying something given how much the company was responsible for previously.

“Broadcom’s focus moving forward is to enable enterprise customers to create and modernize their private and hybrid cloud environments. At the core, Broadcom will invest in VMware Cloud Foundation, the software stack that serves as the foundation of private and hybrid clouds,” the company has outlined.

“Incremental to Broadcom’s investment in VMware Cloud Foundation, VMware will offer a rich catalog of services to modernize and optimize cloud and edge environments, including VMware Tanzu to help accelerate deployment of applications, as well as Application Networking (Load Balancing) and Advanced Security services, and VMware Software-Defined Edge for Telco and enterprise edges,” it added.

While perhaps not as headline-grabbing as the Microsoft-Activision Blizzard deal, this one may be more significant.