The deadline for the $61 billion acquisition of cloud computing company VMware by chipmaker Broadcom has been extended by 90 days.

The massive deal is set to represent one of the largest tech acquisitions ever, with Broadcom attempting to diversify its business into enterprise software.

The new outside date for the completion of the deal is now 26 May, a regulatory filing made on Friday revealed.

A spokesperson for Broadcom said that this kind of delay is commonplace for deals of this nature and size. They said: "We are continuing to make progress with regulatory authorities around the world, and we continue to expect the transaction to close in Broadcom’s fiscal year 2023.”

The comments come against a backdrop of increased regulatory scrutiny of big tech M&A. Last month, the UK’s Competitions and Markets Authority (CMA) started the first phase of an investigation into the deal while EU antitrust regulators will decide whether to clear or block the deal by 7 June.

Further afield, Microsoft’s $69 billion acquisition of videogame publisher Activision Blizzard continues to face hurdles. The CMA has said that the deal would harm gamers in the UK, and the Xbox maker will meet with the EU this week in a last ditch effort to salvage the acquisition.

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