Aerospace and defense firm Thales Group has agreed to buy chipmaker and digital security firm Gemalto in an all-cash transaction costing €51 per share, the companies announced Dec. 17. The bid value represents a total of 5.6 billion euro (6.6 billion USD), Thales reports.

Thales' acquisition comes after three years of investing over €1B in digital tech, including cybersecurity, analytics, and artificial intelligence. It had previously acquired German software firm Sysgo, data security company Vormetric, and analytics/AI business Guavus.

Gemalto's 15,000 employees will join Thales as part of the deal. Thales will combine its digital businesses into Gemalto, which will continue to run under its own name as one of Thales' seven global business units. Gemalto CEO Philippe Vallée will manage the new Global Business Unit. Thales also plans to leverage Gemalto's security tech to provide enterprise and government clients with data security.

Research and development will be the focus of the combined digital security business. Thales reports the combined group will have more than 28,000 engineers and 3,000 researchers, and invest more than €1B in self-funded R&D.

Read more details here.