\n<\/p>\n
In not-so-surprising news, the\u00a0.si domain name is seeing unprecedented demand\u00a0after President Trump signed an executive order mandating all government agencies to refer to \u201cAI\u201d and \u201cartificial intelligence\u201d as \u201cSI\u201d and \u201csuper <\/span>intelligence.\u201d It echoes what happened at the start of the AI boom, when interest in the .ai domain name \u2014 associated with the country Anguilla \u2014 spiked and brought in millions <\/a>for the island territory.\u00a0<\/p>\n Now it\u2019s .si\u2019s turn in the spotlight. The domain name was commonly associated with Slovenia, where,\u00a0ironically, First Lady Melania Trump is from. Klara Herman, a spokesperson at Registry SI, the official organization that manages Slovenia\u2019s domains,\u00a0told the BBC\u00a0earlier this week <\/a>that there was a 2,199% increase in .si domain name purchases in September. However, she was cautious about linking the boost only to President Trump.<\/p>\n Still, the Registry noted 11,000 new addresses recorded on September 30, the day after President Trump signed the executive order<\/a>, and almost 13,000 new .si domain names<\/a> were registered in the past 24 hours.\u00a0<\/p>\n We reached out to a few other web hosting sites to see if they had seen similar trends. GoDaddy said they don\u2019t yet host the .si domain, and Squarespace hadn\u2019t yet responded as of the time of publication. Wix, interestingly enough, said that they weren\u2019t seeing any \u201cmeaningful uptick\u201d on their end, and that it\u2019s been minimal on the site since September 29. \u201cIt\u2019s still early so that could change,\u201d a Wix spokesperson said.\u00a0<\/p>\n But web hosting platform Hostinger told me that .si is now its second most popular domain extension, right after .com. It found that among its customers, almost 4,300 registered .si on September 30 and about 5,400 on October 1; more than three-quarters of all .si domains registered since September 23 came in the last two days. It found that more than half the buyers were coming from the U.S. and India.\u00a0<\/p>\n Curiously enough, on Hostinger, only around 3% of the .si domains are explicitly related to AI, it said. Most are \u201cunclassified\u201d \u2014 meaning their names don\u2019t match any specific category. It said that most of those registering the .si domain name seem to be people and businesses, though there is a speculative element, in that people could be buying the domains to resell them later.\u00a0<\/p>\n Upon hearing this, my first thought went back to what a founder messaged me earlier this week, noting that .si domains were reselling for over a million dollars. Kim Than, CEO of Genius PR, who specializes in working with AI and crypto founders, told me that he already bought the .si version of his company name \u201cto protect the brand in case this takes off like .ai.\u201d And did so because it was cheap, so he figured he might as well \u201csecure it now than potentially pay a lot more later.\u201d<\/p>\n Than sees domain names as digital collectibles and wants to pick up a few more while the price is still good, and he might resell them later; one can also tokenize domains, he said, and trade them on the blockchain, though he\u2019s not sure if .si is supported just yet. \u201cA few founder friends are buying too \u2019cause we think it\u2019s the new AI boom,\u201d he continued. \u201cWho knows how far it goes, but I\u2019m happy to take a bet.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n There is a chance that .si could become pretty popular. President Trump\u2019s executive order said that <\/a>\u201cthe capabilities of today\u2019s frontier systems do much more than imitate or automate discrete aspects of human intelligence,\u201d and that they \u201cincreasingly represent not merely artificial intelligence but a new super intelligence.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Klaudijus Januitis, head of domains at Hostinger, told me that he expects the demand for .si to keep growing, though he doesn\u2019t see that domain replacing .ai anytime soon. Instead, as noted by that founder and his friends, Januitis said .si is right now a more available and a \u201cmore affordable second option.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cSlovenia will not see what Anguilla saw,\u201d he said, noting that, for one, Anguilla charges a \u201cpremium\u201d to use .ai and that money goes straight to the government, while .si is a fraction of the cost and goes to the registry rather than the treasury. For example, on Hostinger, .si costs around $12 dollars a year while .ai goes for $90 and requires a two-year commitment. \u201cFor Anguilla, .ai became a second economy. For Slovenia, .si is a nice bonus.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission<\/a>. This doesn\u2019t affect our editorial independence.<\/em><\/p>\n