Nvidia made an approach in recent weeks about a potential deal, people with knowledge of the matter said.

Azure, Office 365, and Microsoft's gaming business "have all held up well in today's remote economy."

Its plans could change, as it evaluates the pandemic's impact on small and mid-size businesses, its main constituency.

Arm, which lost $400 million in the most recent fiscal year, is looking to cut costs and improve earnings.

The cloud-service provider filed with a listing size of $100 million, a placeholder amount that will likely change.

Its two pillars of strength -- hardware for graphics and for AI in the data center -- have made it the third-largest chipmaker, behind TSMC and Samsung.

Communication towers and data center stocks have seen some of the biggest gains in the S&P 500 so far this year.

Dell surged 12% following a report that it was mulling a spinoff of its 81% stake in VMware.

The potential transaction could raise about $1 billion for the Shanghai-based developer of hyperscale data centers.