02:01 PM EDT, 03/19/2024 (MT Newswires) -- Tech stocks were mixed Tuesday afternoon, with the Technology Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLK) rising 0.4% and the SPDR S&P Semiconductor ETF (XSD) shedding 0.5%.

The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell 0.8%.

In corporate news, Microsoft ( MSFT ) shares added 0.7% after the tech giant said Tuesday it hired Mustafa Suleyman and Karen Simonyan to head a new business segment called Microsoft AI. Suleyman and Simonyan are co-founders of artificial intelligence startup Inflection AI, a rival of Microsoft ( MSFT )-backed OpenAI.

Super Micro Computer ( SMCI ) shares fell 9.5% after the company filed a registration statement for the sale of 2 million shares.

Nvidia's ( NVDA ) new Blackwell computing platform, along with a series of artificial intelligence chips, should give the semiconductor maker a competitive edge in the AI accelerator market, analysts said. Nvidia ( NVDA ) shares rose 1.4%, erasing earlier losses.