In the field of software, SQL programming tools provide platforms for database administrators (DBAs) and application developers to perform daily tasks efficiently and accurately. Database administrators and application developers often face constantly changing environments which they rarely completely control. Many changes result from new development projects or from modifications to existing code, which, when deployed to production, do not always produce the expected result. For organizations to better manage development projects and the teams that develop code, suppliers of SQL programming tools normally provide more than facility to the database administrator or application developer to aid in database management and in quality code-deployment practices. == Features == SQL programming tools may include the following features: === SQL editing === SQL editors allow users to edit and execute SQL statements. They may support the following features: cut, copy, paste, undo, redo, find (and replace), bookmarks block indent, print, save file, uppercase/lowercase keyword highlighting auto-completion access to frequently used files output of query result editing query-results committing and rolling-back transactions inside cut paper === Object browsing === Tools may display information about database objects relevant to developers or to database administrators. Users may: view object descriptions view object definitions (DDL) create database objects enable and disable triggers and constraints recompile valid or invalid objects query or edit tables and views Some tools also provide features to display dependencies among objects, and allow users to expand these dependent objects recursively (for example: packages may reference views, views generally reference tables, super/subtypes, and so on). === Session browsing === Database administrators and application developers can use session browsing tools to view the current activities of each user in the database. They can check the resource-usage of individual users, statistics information, locked objects and the current running SQL of each individual session. === User-security management === DBAs can create, edit, delete, disable or enable user-accounts in the database using security-management tools. DBAs can also assign roles, system privileges, object privileges, and storage-quotas to users. === Debugging === Some tools offer features for the debugging of stored procedures: step in, step over, step out, run until exception, breakpoints, view & set variables, view call stack, and so on. Users can debug any program-unit without making any modification to it, including triggers and object types. === Performance monitoring === Monitoring tools may show the database resources — usage summary, service time summary, recent activities, top sessions, session history or top SQL — in easy-to-read graphs. Database administrators can easily monitor the health of various components in the monitoring instance. Application developers may also make use of such tools to diagnose and correct application-performance problems as well as improve SQL server performance. === Test data === Test data generation tools can populate the database by realistic test data for server or client side testing purposes. Also, this kind of software can upload sample blob files to database.
Pixel
In digital imaging, a pixel (abbreviated px), pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable physical element of a raster image or the smallest controllable element of a display device or dot matrix printer. Pixels are arranged in a regular, two-dimensional grid, and each pixel serves as a sample of an original image, with a greater number of samples typically providing more accurate representations. Each pixel possesses a specific intensity or color, often composed of three or four component intensities, such as red, green, and blue (RGB), or cyan, magenta, yellow, and black (CMYK). The intensity of each pixel is variable, and in color imaging systems, these components are combined to produce a wide spectrum of colors. The concept of a picture element has existed since the early days of television, appearing as "Bildpunkt" in a 1888 German patent, and the term "pixel" has been used in various U.S. patents since 1911. In most digital display devices, pixels are the smallest element that can be manipulated through software. Each pixel is a sample of an original image; more samples typically provide more accurate representations of the original. The intensity of each pixel is variable. In color imaging systems, a color is typically represented by three or four component intensities such as red, green, and blue, or cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. In some contexts (such as descriptions of camera sensors), pixel refers to a single scalar element of a multi-component representation (called a photosite in the camera sensor context, although sensel 'sensor element' is sometimes used), while in yet other contexts (like MRI) it may refer to a set of component intensities for a spatial position. Software on early consumer computers was necessarily rendered at a low resolution, with large pixels visible to the naked eye; graphics made under these limitations may be called pixel art, especially in reference to video games. Modern computers and displays, however, can easily render orders of magnitude more pixels than was previously possible, necessitating the use of large measurements like the megapixel (one million pixels). == Etymology == The word pixel is a combination of pix (from "pictures", shortened to "pics") and el (for "element"); similar formations with 'el' include the words voxel 'volume pixel', and texel 'texture pixel'. The word pix appeared in Variety magazine headlines in 1932, as an abbreviation for the word pictures, in reference to movies. By 1938, "pix" was being used in reference to still pictures by photojournalists. The word "pixel" was first published in 1965 by Frederic C. Billingsley of JPL, to describe the picture elements of scanned images from space probes to the Moon and Mars. Billingsley had learned the word from Keith E. McFarland, at the Link Division of General Precision in Palo Alto, who in turn said he did not know where it originated. McFarland said simply it was "in use at the time" (c. 1963). The concept of a "picture element" dates to the earliest days of television, for example as "Bildpunkt" (the German word for pixel, literally 'picture point') in the 1888 German patent of Paul Nipkow. According to various etymologies, the earliest publication of the term picture element itself was in Wireless World magazine in 1927, though it had been used earlier in various U.S. patents filed as early as 1911. Some authors explain pixel as picture cell, as early as 1972. In graphics and in image and video processing, pel is often used instead of pixel. For example, IBM used it in their Technical Reference for the original PC. Pixilation, spelled with a second i, is an unrelated filmmaking technique that dates to the beginnings of cinema, in which live actors are posed frame by frame and photographed to create stop-motion animation. An archaic British word meaning "possession by spirits (pixies)", the term has been used to describe the animation process since the early 1950s; various animators, including Norman McLaren and Grant Munro, are credited with popularizing it. == Technical == A pixel is generally thought of as the smallest single component of a digital image. However, the definition is highly context-sensitive. For example, there can be "printed pixels" in a page, or pixels carried by electronic signals, or represented by digital values, or pixels on a display device, or pixels in a digital camera (photosensor elements). This list is not exhaustive and, depending on context, synonyms include pel, sample, byte, bit, dot, and spot. Pixels can be used as a unit of measure such as: 2400 pixels per inch, 640 pixels per line, or spaced 10 pixels apart. The measures "dots per inch" (dpi) and "pixels per inch" (ppi) are sometimes used interchangeably, but have distinct meanings, especially for printer devices, where dpi is a measure of the printer's density of dot (e.g. ink droplet) placement. For example, a high-quality photographic image may be printed with 600 ppi on a 1200 dpi inkjet printer. Even higher dpi numbers, such as the 4800 dpi quoted by printer manufacturers since 2002, do not mean much in terms of achievable resolution. The more pixels used to represent an image, the closer the result can resemble the original. The number of pixels in an image is sometimes called the resolution, though resolution has a more specific definition. Pixel counts can be expressed as a single number, as in a "three-megapixel" digital camera, which has a nominal three million pixels, or as a pair of numbers, as in a "640 by 480 display", which has 640 pixels from side to side and 480 from top to bottom (as in a VGA display) and therefore has a total number of 640 × 480 = 307,200 pixels, or 0.3 megapixels. The pixels, or color samples, that form a digitized image (such as a JPEG file used on a web page) may or may not be in one-to-one correspondence with screen pixels, depending on how a computer displays an image. In computing, an image composed of pixels is known as a bitmapped image or a raster image. The word raster originates from television scanning patterns, and has been widely used to describe similar halftone printing and storage techniques. === Sampling patterns === For convenience, pixels are normally arranged in a regular two-dimensional grid. By using this arrangement, many common operations can be implemented by uniformly applying the same operation to each pixel independently. Other arrangements of pixels are possible, with some sampling patterns even changing the shape (or kernel) of each pixel across the image. For this reason, care must be taken when acquiring an image on one device and displaying it on another, or when converting image data from one pixel format to another. For example: Liquid-crystal displays (LCDs) typically use a staggered grid, where the red, green, and blue components are sampled at slightly different locations. Subpixel rendering is a technology which takes advantage of these differences to improve the rendering of text on LCD screens. The vast majority of color digital cameras use a Bayer filter, resulting in a regular grid of pixels where the color of each pixel depends on its position on the grid. A clipmap uses a hierarchical sampling pattern, where the size of the support of each pixel depends on its location within the hierarchy. Warped grids are used when the underlying geometry is non-planar, such as images of the earth from space. The use of non-uniform grids is an active research area, attempting to bypass the traditional Nyquist limit. Pixels on computer monitors are normally "square" (that is, have equal horizontal and vertical sampling pitch); pixels in other systems are often "rectangular" (that is, have unequal horizontal and vertical sampling pitch – oblong in shape), as are digital video formats with diverse aspect ratios, such as the anamorphic widescreen formats of the Rec. 601 digital video standard. === Resolution of computer monitors === Computer monitors (and TV sets) generally have a fixed native resolution. What it is depends on the monitor, and size. See below for historical exceptions. Computers can use pixels to display an image, often an abstract image that represents a GUI. The resolution of this image is called the display resolution and is determined by the video card of the computer. Flat-panel monitors (and TV sets), e.g. OLED or LCD monitors, or E-ink, also use pixels to display an image, and have a native resolution, and it should (ideally) be matched to the video card resolution. Each pixel is made up of triads, with the number of these triads determining the native resolution. On older, historically available, CRT monitors the resolution was possibly adjustable (still lower than what modern monitor achieve), while on some such monitors (or TV sets) the beam sweep rate was fixed, resulting in a fixed native resolution. Most CRT monitors do not have a fixed beam sweep rate, meaning they do not have a native resolution at all – instead they
It's the Most Terrible Time of the Year
It's the Most Terrible Time of the Year is an AI-generated television commercial created for McDonald's Netherlands by TBWA\Neboko and The Sweetshop. It was released on 6 December 2025 before being pulled four days later due to negative reception over its use of generative artificial intelligence and its cynical, negative depiction of the holiday season. == Plot == On a bleak, snowy day, various people in the city experience different kinds of mishaps during the Christmas season. Among other incidents, families struggle with their huge loads of presents; Santa Claus gets stuck in traffic; a Christmas tree "redecorates" a man's home, sending him through the window; another family puts up with annoying relatives and a burnt Christmas dinner. Because of all this chaos, a man decides to find refuge in a McDonald's outlet. A Christmas choir finishes singing the jingle "It's the Most Terrible Time of the Year" with the call to action to "hide out in McDonald's till January's here". == Campaign == It's the Most Terrible Time of the Year is a 45-second television commercial made by Dutch agency TBWA\Neboko with involvement of United States-based film production studio The Sweetshop. The advertisement was produced heavily with generative artificial intelligence (AI) following the trend set by other brands such as Coca-Cola and Toys "R" Us. McDonald's Netherlands, the client, released a statement that the commercial was meant to depict "the stressful moments during the holidays in the Netherlands". The commercial also used Andy Williams's "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year" with lyrics changed to fit with the concept of the advertisement. According to The Sweetshop, the production of the advertisement took "seven weeks". It also added that much effort was put into the commercial compared to the traditional process. Ten people of its in-house AI engine The Gardening Club worked on the project. Los Angeles-based directors Mark Potoka and Matt Spicer were initially credited to be involved in the film but they resigned due to being sidelined from the production process. == Reception == The advertisement was released on McDonald's Netherlands' YouTube channel on 6 December 2025. It had a negative reception over the use of generative AI and the "cynical" concept of the work's story. The video was made private on 9 December 2025. The Sweetshop stated that the production of the advertisement took human effort. McDonald's Netherlands, while stating the original intent of the commercial, released a statement after its pullout that, for many of its customers, the holiday season is the "most wonderful time of the year".
Pop music automation
Pop music automation is a field of study among musicians and computer scientists with a goal of producing successful pop music algorithmically. It is often based on the premise that pop music is especially formulaic, unchanging, and easy to compose. The idea of automating pop music composition is related to many ideas in algorithmic music, artificial intelligence (AI) and computational creativity. == History of automation in music == Algorithms (or, at the very least, formal sets of rules) have been used to compose music for centuries; the procedures used to plot voice-leading in counterpoint, for example, can often be reduced to algorithmic determinant. Now the term is usually reserved, however, for the use of formal procedures to make music without human intervention. Classical music automation software exists that generates music in the style of Mozart and Bach and jazz. Most notably, David Cope has written a software system called "Experiments in Musical Intelligence" (or "EMI") that is capable of analyzing and generalizing from existing music by a human composer to generate novel musical compositions in the same style. EMI's output is convincing enough to persuade human listeners that its music is human-generated to a high level of competence. Creativity research in jazz has focused on the process of improvisation and the cognitive demands that this places on a musical agent: reasoning about time, remembering and conceptualizing what has already been played, and planning ahead for what might be played next. Inevitably associated with pop music automation is pop music analysis. Projects in pop music automation may include, but are not limited to, ideas in melody creation and song development, vocal generation or improvement, automatic accompaniment and lyric composition. == Automatic accompaniment == Some systems exist that automatically choose chords to accompany a vocal melody in real-time. A user with no musical experience can create a song with instrumental accompaniment just by singing into a microphone. An example is a Microsoft Research project called Songsmith, which trains a Hidden Markov model using a music database and uses that model to select chords for new melodies. == Melody generation == Automatic melody generation is often done with a Markov chain, the states of the system become note or pitch values, and a probability vector for each note is constructed, completing a transition probability matrix (see below). An algorithm is constructed to produce an output note values based on the transition matrix weightings, which could be MIDI note values, frequency (Hz), or any other desirable metric. A second-order Markov chain can be introduced by considering the current state and also the previous state, as indicated in the second table. Higher, nth-order chains tend to "group" particular notes together, while 'breaking off' into other patterns and sequences occasionally. These higher-order chains tend to generate results with a sense of phrasal structure, rather than the 'aimless wandering' produced by a first-order system. == Lyric composition == Automated lyric creating software may take forms such as: Selecting words according to their rhythm The Tra-la-Lyrics system produces song lyrics, in Portuguese, for a given melody. This not only involves matching each word syllable with a note in the melody, but also matching the word's stress with the strong beats of the melody. Parsing existing pop music (e.g. for content or word choice) This involves natural language processing. Pablo Gervás has developed a noteworthy system called ASPERA that employs a case-based reasoning (CBR) approach to generating poetic formulations of a given input text via a composition of poetic fragments that are retrieved from a case-base of existing poems. Each poem fragment in the ASPERA case-base is annotated with a prose string that expresses the meaning of the fragment, and this prose string is used as the retrieval key for each fragment. Metrical rules are then used to combine these fragments into a well-formed poetic structure. Automatic analogy or story creation Programs like TALE-SPIN and The MINSTREL system represent a complex elaboration of this basis approach, distinguishing a range of character-level goals in the story from a range of author-level goals for the story. Systems like Bringsjord's BRUTUS can create stories with complex interpersonal themes like betrayal. On-line metaphor generation systems like 'Sardonicus' or 'Aristotle' can suggest lexical metaphors for a given descriptive goal (e.g., to describe a supermodel as skinny, the source terms “pencil”, “whip”, “whippet”, “rope”, “stick-insect” and “snake” are suggested). Free association of grouped words Using a language database (such as wordnet) one can create musings on a subject that may be weak grammatically but are still sensical. See such projects as the Flowerewolf automatic poetry generator or the Dada engine. == Software == === More or less free === BreathCube by xoxos. Simple lyrical vocal content is generated with simple music. CubeBreath by xoxos. Audio input is vocoded in tune with the music. Midi Internet Algorithmic Composition infno, infinite generator of electronic dance music and synth-pop. Algorithmic Trap, trap beat generator. === Commercial === Band in a box generates any element, potentially creates whole new songs from scratch. Musical Palette - Melody Composing Tool SongSmith: Automatic accompaniment for vocal melodies Ludwig 3.0 automatic accompaniment, writes arrangements for given instruments, plays its own songs for an infinitely long time. Automated Composing System creates music in many different styles
KitKat (cat)
KitKat was a bodega cat from the Mission District of San Francisco who was killed by a Waymo car on October 27, 2025. Locals built altars and the death has raised comments about the safety of self-driving cars. == Life == Mike Zeidan, the owner of Randa's Market, adopted KitKat as a stray to help keep rodents out of his store. KitKat lived in Randa's Market for six years and was well-loved by the neighborhood, including an appearance on a shop cats map that went viral in 2022 as a "particularly friendly cat". After KitKat arrived at the bodega, customers were said to come more often, and regularly brought the cat food and gifts. == Death == At around 11:40 pm on October 27, 2025, witnesses saw KitKat sitting in front of a stopped Waymo car for seven seconds. He walked under the car as the car pulled out, and the right rear tire ran over the back half of his body. A bartender who was taking a cigarette break used a sandwich board sign as a stretcher and took KitKat to an emergency animal clinic. An hour later, KitKat was pronounced dead. Waymo confirmed that the cat was killed by one of its vehicles on October 30. Surveillance footage of the incident was released in December. From Waymo's report to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA): The Waymo AV was stopped next to the curb for a passenger pickup facing east on 16th Street. As the passengers were boarding the Waymo AV, a cat approached the Waymo AV from the southern sidewalk of 16th Street and sat in the roadway partially under the front right corner of the Waymo AV. A pedestrian approached the Waymo AV from the east on the southern sidewalk of 16th Street and began crouching near the front of the Waymo AV, stepping partially into the roadway, appearing to reach for the cat. As they did so, the cat moved farther from the sidewalk under the Waymo AV and the pedestrian stepped back onto the sidewalk. The Waymo AV then departed the pickup location and the rear right tire made contact with the cat. At the time of impact, the Waymo AV's Level 4 ADS was engaged in autonomous mode. Waymo later received notice that the cat did not survive. The passengers in the Waymo AV did not have seatbelts fastened at the time, having just boarded the Waymo AV. Prior to KitKat's death, the NHTSA had logged 14 collisions between Waymo cars and animals, of which 5 were confirmed fatalities. == Aftermath == After KitKat's death, an altar was created outside Randa's Market. People left flowers, candles, cat food, written notes, and Kit Kat candy bars in the cat's honor. A city worker took down the memorial for fire safety reasons, but neighbors built it again. Local supervisor Jackie Fielder held a rally called "Justice for KitKat" in support of a non-binding San Francisco resolution to shift decision-making about the operation of self-driving cars from the state to individual counties. Critics say that the resolution is performative because it is non-binding, that local control would make autonomous vehicle operation impractical, and that Waymo is still far less dangerous to animals than human drivers. Elon Musk commented that "many pets will be saved by autonomy". There are multiple meme coins inspired by KitKat.
Fragment (computer graphics)
In computer graphics, a fragment is the data necessary to generate a single pixel's worth of a drawing primitive in the frame buffer. These data may include, but are not limited to: raster position depth interpolated attributes (color, texture coordinates, etc.) stencil alpha window ID As a scene is drawn, drawing primitives (the basic elements of graphics output, such as points, lines, circles, text etc.) are rasterized into fragments which are textured and combined with the existing frame buffer. How a fragment is combined with the data already in the frame buffer depends on various settings. In a typical case, a fragment may be discarded if it is further away than the pixel which is already at that location (according to the depth buffer). If it is nearer than the existing pixel, it may replace what is already there, or, if alpha blending is in use, the pixel's color may be replaced with a mixture of the fragment's color and the pixel's existing color, as in the case of drawing a translucent object. In general, a fragment can be thought of as the data needed to shade the pixel, plus the data needed to test whether the fragment survives to become a pixel (depth, alpha, stencil, scissor, window ID, etc.). Shading a fragment is done through a fragment shader (or pixel shaders in Direct3D). In computer graphics, a fragment is not necessarily opaque, and could contain an alpha value specifying its degree of transparency. The alpha is typically normalized to the range of [0, 1], with 0 denotes totally transparent and 1 denotes totally opaque. If the fragment is not totally opaque, then part of its background object could show through, which is known as alpha blending.
Artificial Intelligence Cold War
The Artificial Intelligence Cold War (AI Cold War) is a narrative in which geopolitical tensions between the United States of America (USA) and the People's Republic of China (PRC) could lead to a Second Cold War waged in the area of artificial intelligence technology rather than in the areas of nuclear capabilities or ideology. The context of the AI Cold War narrative is the AI arms race, which involves a build-up of military capabilities using AI technology by the US and China and the usage of increasingly advanced semiconductors which power those capabilities. According to a February 2019 publication by the Center for a New American Security, General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Xi Jinping – believes that being at the forefront of AI technology will be critical to the future of China's global military and economic power competition. == Origins of the term == The term AI Cold War first appeared in 2018 in an article in Wired magazine by Nicholas Thompson and Ian Bremmer. The two authors trace the emergence of the AI Cold War narrative to 2017, when China published its AI Development Plan, which included a strategy aimed at becoming the global leader in AI by 2030. While the authors acknowledge the use of AI by China to strengthen its authoritarian (totalitarian) rule, they warn against the perils for the US of engaging in an AI Cold War strategy. Thompson and Bremmer rather advocate for a technological cooperation between the US and China to encourage global standards in privacy and ethical use of AI. Shortly after the publication of the article in Wired magazine, the former U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson referred to the emergence of an ‘Economic Iron Curtain’ between the US and China, reinforcing the new AI Cold War narrative. == Proponents of the AI Cold War narrative == Politico contributed to reinforcing the AI Cold War narrative. In 2020, the paper argued that because of the increasing AI capabilities of China, the US and other democratic countries have to create an alliance to stay ahead of China. Former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt, together with Graham T. Allison alleged in an article in Project Syndicate that, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, the AI capabilities of China are ahead of the US in most critical areas. Scientists who have immigrated to the U.S. play an outsize role in the country's development of AI technology. Many of them were educated in China, prompting debates about national security concerns amid worsening relations between the two countries. Policy and technology experts have pointed to concerns about unethical use of AI which would be primarily associated with China. Ethics would therefore constitute a major ideological divide in the upcoming AI Cold War. Fears around disrupting supply chains and a global semiconductor shortage are linked to Taiwan's critical role in the production of semiconductors. 70% of semiconductors are either produced in Taiwan or transfer through Taiwan, where TSMC, world's largest chipmaker is headquartered. The PRC does not recognize the sovereignty of Taiwan and trade restrictions by the US on companies selling semiconductors to the PRC have disrupted in the past the commercial relationships between TSMC and Huawei. == Reactions to the AI Cold War == === Review of the validity of the AI Cold War narrative === Academics and observers expressed concerns about the validity and soundness of the AI Cold War narrative. Denise Garzia expressed concern in Nature that the AI Cold War narrative will undermine the efforts by the US to establish global rules for AI ethics. Researchers have warned in MIT Technology Review that the breakdown in international collaboration in the area of science because of the threat of the alleged AI Cold War would be detrimental to progress. Additionally, the AI Cold War narrative impacts on many more areas including the planning of supply chains and the proliferation of AI. The dissemination of the AI Cold War narrative could therefore be costly and destructive and exacerbate existing tensions. Joanna Bryson and Helena Malikova have pointed to Big Tech's potential interest in promoting the AI Cold War narrative, as technology companies lobby for less onerous regulation of AI in the US and the EU. A factual assessment of the existing AI capabilities of different countries shows a less binary reality than portrayed by the AI Cold War narrative. The AI Cold War started as a narrative but it could turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy and fuel an arms race, not only because of corporate interests but also because of the existing interests at different national security departments. Regarding cyber power, the International Institute for Strategic Studies published a study in June 2021, which argued that the online capabilities of China have been exaggerated and that Chinese cyber power is at least a decade behind the US, largely due to lingering security issues. === Restrictions to trading with China === US politicians and European industry players have invoked the looming AI Cold War as a reason to ban procurement by public authorities in Europe of Huawei 5G technology due to concerns over the Chinese state-sponsored surveillance industry. In 2019, the Trump administration successfully lobbied the Dutch government into stopping the Netherlands-based company ASML from exporting equipment to China. ASML manufactures a machine called an extreme ultraviolet lithography system used by semiconductor producers, including TSMC and Intel to produce state-of the-art microchips. The Biden administration adopted the same course of action as the Trump administration and requested the Netherlands to restrict sales by ASML to China, invoking national-security concerns. The trade restrictions imposed by the Trump administration affected semiconductors imports from China to the US and raised concerns by the US industry that supply chains will be disrupted in case of an AI Cold War. This prompted US technology companies to develop mitigation strategies including hoarding semiconductors and trying to set up local semiconductor production facilities, with the support of government subsidies. === Industrial policy initiatives === ==== United States ==== In June 2021, the US Senate approved the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act providing around 250 billion US dollars public money support to the US technological and manufacturing industry. The alleged Chinese threat in the area of technology helped secure a strong bipartisan support for the new legislation, amounting to the largest industrial policy move by the US in decades. Chinese authorities reproached to the US that the bill was “full of cold war zero-sum thinking”. The legislative bill is aimed at strengthening capabilities in the area of technology, such as quantum computing and AI specifically to face the competitive threat from China perceived as urgent. Senator Chuck Schumer, the leader of the Senate majority and one of the sponsors of the industrial policy bill invoked the threat of authoritarian regimes that want “grab the mantle of global economic leadership and own the innovations”. In 2022, U.S. Innovation and Competition Act was amended and turned into the Chips and Science Act with planned spending of 280 billion US dollars, 53 billion thereof are allocated directly to subsidies for semiconductors manufacturing. Commentators identified possible positive effects on innovation from the US attempts to compete with China in a perceived rivalry. Among the main beneficiaries of the US CHIPS Act are the semiconductor producers Intel, TSMC and Micron Technology. ==== European Chips Act ==== In February 2022, the European Union introduced its own European Chips Act initiative. The background of the initiative would be the objective of European strategic autonomy. The EU's initiative puts forward subsidies of 30 billion euros to encourage manufacturing of semiconductors in the EU. The US company Intel is one beneficiary of the initiative. The US and European chips acts raise concerns of protectionism and a risk of a subsidies "race to the bottom." === New world order === The AI Cold War heralds a new world order in geopolitics, according to Hemant Taneja and Fareed Zakaria. This new world order is a departure from the unipolar system dominated by the US. It is characterized by existence of two parallel digital ecosystems, ran by China and the US. In order to succeed countries that consider themselves as democracies are to align their technological ecosystems to that of the US, in a process labelled re-globalization.