US chipmaker Intel has bid up to $6 billion in cash and stock to buy Israel’s Mellanox Technologies, Israeli media reported on Wednesday.

A $6 billion offer would represent a 35 per cent premium to the last closing price of Mellanox on Nasdaq, the Calcalist financial news website said. Based in Yokneam, Israel, Mellanox makes chips and other hardware for data centre servers that power cloud computing.

Officials at Intel and Mellanox declined to comment. In October CNBC reported that Mellanox has hired a financial adviser to explore a sale after receiving takeover interest from at least two companies.

On Monday, Israeli Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon said Intel plans to invest $11 billion to expand its manufacturing operations in southern Israel. - Reuters