3 Terrific Tech ETFs for the Future of Everything

The economy and market are fluid. Its various sectors (which are just groups of similar businesses) have fallen in and out of prominence over time.

Just consider this: The energy sector used to be one of the market's largest sectors, making up a high-teens percentage of the S&P 500 before the Great Recession. Today, it sits around 4%, and that's after its recent big run on the back of surging oil prices.

Today, technology stocks are king of the hill. They've been the market's greatest driver of growth over the past quarter-century or so thanks to the internet, e-commerce, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and more. These innovations have made technology far more than just the devices in our hands and on our desks—they've turned technology into the backbone of the American economy.

So while sectors come and sectors go, at least for now, no one sees technology's superiority waning anytime soon.

But remember: Technology is full of companies disrupting one another. Making concentrated bets can pay off big-time … but also blow up in your face. So if you'd prefer to spread around that risk and bet on the future of technology broadly, these tech ETFs can do the trick.

Disclaimer: This article does not constitute individualized investment advice. Individual securities, funds, and/or other investments appear for your consideration and not as personalized investment recommendations. Act at your own discretion.

The Best Tech Stock ETFs to Buy

Today, I'm going to narrow a very large universe of tech ETFs down to a batch that will appeal to most buy-and-hold investors looking for certain criteria.

Related: The 16 Best ETFs to Buy Right Now

I start virtually every review of investment funds by booting up Morningstar Investor and running a quality screen I customize for each article. Here's what I looked for in my search for the best technology funds:

• Morningstar Medalist rating: Morningstar Medalist ratings are a forward-looking analytical view of a fund. Per Morningstar: "For actively managed funds, the top three ratings of Gold, Silver, and Bronze all indicate that our analysts expect the rated investment vehicle to produce positive alpha relative to its Morningstar Category index over the long term, meaning a period of at least five years. For passive strategies, the same ratings indicate that we expect the fund to deliver alpha relative to its Morningstar Category index that is above the lesser of the category median or zero over the long term." I'm starting with any ETF that earns at least a Morningstar Medalist rating of Bronze.
• Low fees: Every basis point in expenses that a fund charges is money that's coming out of performance. While we obviously want fund companies to be compensated for making a good product, we want to own funds that aren't taking an onerous cut of the returns. All funds here are in the second-lowest or lowest quartile of category funds by expenses.
• Meaningful assets under management: To be included on this list, a tech ETF must have at least $250 million in assets under management (AUM). Established ETFs with a decent asset base are much less likely to close than those without (the number of ETF closures in a given year is typically in the triple digits!). Higher assets under management also frequently coincide with lower expenses (great for investors generally) and tighter bid/ask spreads (great for swing and day traders).

Out of the more digestible resulting list, I've selected a variety of technology ETFs that cover a variety of investor wants and needs, from core sector coverage to smart-beta twists to specific technology industries.

Let's check out a few selections from my fuller list of the best tech ETFs on the market.

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Vanguard Information Technology ETF

• Assets under management: $124.9 billion*
• Dividend yield: 0.4%
• Expense ratio: 0.03%, or 90¢ per year on every $1,000 invested
• Morningstar Medalist rating: Bronze

If you just want to buy a broad bundle of tech stocks at a reasonable cost, it's hard to do much better than the Vanguard Information Technology ETF (VGT).

The VGT tracks the MSCI US Investable Market Information Technology 25/50 Index, which includes large-, mid- and small-cap companies within the information technology sector. Its assets are allocated to each stock based on the market capitalization of the company's "float," which is just the company's shares available for public trading. Said more simply: The bigger the company, the greater its weight.

On the one hand, you're getting exposure to nearly 320 companies (most of them growth stocks) spanning a variety of technology-sector industries, including semiconductors; systems software; application software; hardware, storage, and peripherals; electronic components; and more.

Related: 14 Best Investing Research & Stock Analysis Websites [2026]

On the other hand, while that sounds pretty diversified, VGT—and many other broad sector funds, which frequently use market cap weighting systems—still poses some concentration risk. For instance, trillion-dollar behemoths Nvidia (NVDA), Apple (AAPL), and Microsoft (MSFT) account for 18%, 16%, and 10% of the fund's assets, respectively. For a fund that holds hundreds of companies, a lot of the fund's performance (43%!) is reliant on just three names.  This weighting system also skews the exposure to different market-cap sizes. VGT allocates almost 80% of its assets to large caps; mid- and small caps split the rest.

If you really want to lean into the benefits of diversification with much more similar exposure across all stocks, you could consider a fund that equally weights its components, such as the Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight Technology ETF (RSPT), which I've previously called one of the best ETFs for beginners.

However, Vanguard Information Technology ETF is the market's largest tech stock ETF by assets, and it's not for nothing. In addition to having extremely low annual expenses of just 0.09%, its straightforward methodology has largely worked out for it. Indeed, VGT has beaten the pants off RSPT over every significant time frame. 

Part of the reason? When its larger components struggle (and it's not because of, say, a bear market), it may be because smaller components in the fund are eating their lunch. So as long as all of VGT's holdings have a larger lunch to share, the ETF should benefit.

* Vanguard fund assets are spread across multiple share classes, including mutual funds and ETFs alike. Assets listed for each fund in this story are for the ETF share class only.

Related: 10 Best Schwab ETFs to Buy [Build Your Core for Cheap]

iShares U.S. Tech Independence Focused ETF

• Assets under management: $833.6 million
• Dividend yield: 0.3%
• Expense ratio: 0.18%, or $1.80 per year on every $1,000 invested
• Morningstar Medalist rating: Gold

Active management gets a bad rap because of its higher costs and (in some categories) broadly inferior performance. But that doesn't mean you should exclude active management as a general rule.

Case in point: The lesser-known iShares U.S. Tech Independence Focused ETF (IETC), which at less than $1 billion in AUM is much smaller than the aforementioned tech ETFs ... but also better-rated. "A sound investment process and strong management team underpin iShares U.S. Tech Independence Fcs ETF's Morningstar Medalist Rating of Gold," says Morningstar, which gives IETC a Gold Medalist rating.

Related: 10 Best Low-Cost Fidelity Index Funds to Buy Now

Managers Travis Cooke, Linus Franngard, and Jeff Shen seek "exposure to U.S. tech companies more resilient to geopolitical headwinds and driving U.S. technological independence." The team uses machine learning and big data to create a fairly broad U.S. tech portfolio, but one that could benefit from American reshoring and "friend-shoring."

iShares U.S. Tech Independence Focused ETF currently owns just under 90 stocks. As is common in actively run funds, management is happy to make outsized bets on their highest-conviction holdings. Right now, that includes the likes of Broadcom (AVGO, 13%) and Palantir (PLTR, 8%). Both holdings have more influence than multitrillion-dollar semiconductor giant Nvidia, which isn't nothing (it's the No. 3 holding at just under 8% of IETC's weight), but it's worth noting given that NVDA tends to lead most market cap-weighted index funds.

The ETF is also less rigid from a sector front—while the lion's share of assets are invested in the tech sector, iShares' fund holds tech-esque stocks such as Amazon (AMZN, consumer discretionary) and Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL, communication services).

Morningstar's Medalist ratings might be forward-looking, but the view is pretty nice looking backward, too. iShares U.S. Tech Independence Focused ETF's performance has been commendable since inception in 2018, with the fund beating out its category average over the trailing three- and five-year periods.

Related: 10 Monthly Dividend Stocks for Frequent, Regular Income

Alger AI Enablers & Adopters ETF

• Assets under management: $437.33 million
• Dividend yield: 1.2%
• Expense ratio: 0.55%*, or $5.50 per year on every $1,000 invested
• Morningstar Medalist rating: Gold

We can also get actively managed thematic exposure, like what the Alger AI Enablers & Adopters ETF (ALAI) has to offer.

Portfolio Manager Patrick Kelly seeks out companies "focusing on the development, adoption, or utilization of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies) identified through our fundamental research as demonstrating promising growth potential."

It's a broad mandate. He can invest in stocks of all sizes and geographies. He's allowed to buy not only traditional common stock, but even preferred stock. And he can even own private placements that you and I otherwise couldn't own. All that really matters is that "AI can play a material role in potentially driving stock price performance over the next 12 to 36 months."

Related: 5 Best Silver ETFs You Can Own

This AI ETF currently owns 57 stocks, many of which are names you associate with artificial intelligence: Nvidia. Amazon. Alphabet. But realize: Only one of those (Nvidia) is a tech-sector firm.

Indeed, ALAI is considered a technology fund, and technically, a majority of its holdings are in the tech sector … but it's only 55% of assets. Tech-esque communication services are a sizable 20%, and consumer cyclicals are in the low teens. It also holds companies from an additional five sectors including healthcare and even materials. And it makes sense—the fund's strategy isn't limited to companies that enable artificial technology, but instead also embraces companies that merely use it.

Kelly is only taking one really big swing at the moment (Nvidia, 13%), though Amazon, Alphabet, and Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM) are all 5%-6% weights.

Alger AI Enablers & Adopters has only been around since 2024, so there are no meaningful performance metrics to use for comparison's sake. But Morningstar gives the fund its highest Medalist rating of Gold, and an enormous fee waiver helps make its fee much more competitive with index funds catering to the AI theme. That puts ALAI among some of the best tech ETFs you can own right now.

* 1.68% expense ratio is reduced with a 1.13-percentage-point fee waiver.

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