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Sector Update: Tech Stocks Mixed Friday Afternoon

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Tech stocks were mixed Friday afternoon, with the State Street Technology Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLK) decreasing 0.1% and the State Street SPDR S&P Semiconductor ETF (XSD) rising 0.2%.

The Philadelphia Semiconductor index was fractionally higher.

In corporate news, Meta Platforms (META) is in talks to rent out computing power from its data centers to Anthropic in a deal that could be worth up to $10 billion over two years, The New York Times reported. Separately, Meta has hired Dave Brown, a senior executive at Amazon (AMZN) Web Services, to help with its data center expansion and computing infrastructure ambitions, the Wall Street Journal reported. Meta shares were down 2%.

Apple (AAPL) is in early discussions with the US Justice Department regarding the settlement of a 2024 lawsuit alleging the tech giant violated antitrust laws, Bloomberg reported. Separately, Apple has sent personal legal warnings to dozens of former employees now working at Microsoft-backed (MSFT) OpenAI to find proof that the AI company stole its trade secrets, the Financial Times reported. Apple shares were shedding 1%.

ASML (ASML) will give its workers globally a one-time 20,000 euro ($22,862) bonus, as AI demand boosts sales, Bloomberg reported, citing an emailed statement. The company plans to give employees a share award on Jan. 1 that begins vesting at the start of 2030 for workers who stay with the company for the entire period, the report said, citing the statement. ASML shares were fractionally higher.

Alibaba-backed (BABA) Moonshot said Thursday that it is launching Kimi K3, a 2.8 trillion-parameter open-source AI model with a 1 million-token context window, describing it as the world's first open 3T-class model. Alibaba shares were declining 1.6%.

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