As expected, there is unprecedented demand for .si domains following President Trump's executive order requiring all government agencies to refer to "AI" and "artificial intelligence" as "SI" and "super intelligence."
This recalls what happened at the beginning of the AI boom: interest in .ai domains associated with Anguilla surged, bringing millions of dollars in revenue to the island territory.
Now, it’s the turn of .si to take center stage. This domain is typically associated with Slovenia, and ironically, First Lady Melania Trump hails from Slovenia. Klara Herman, a spokesperson for Registry SI, Slovenia’s official domain registry, told the BBC earlier this week that .si domain purchases increased by 2,199% in September. However, she was cautious about attributing this surge entirely to President Trump.
Nevertheless, Registry SI noted that on September 30—the day after President Trump signed the executive order—11,000 new addresses were added, and nearly 13,000 newly registered .si domains were recorded within the past 24 hours.
TechCrunch reached out to several other web hosting platforms to find out whether they had observed similar trends. GoDaddy stated that it currently does not offer .si domain hosting services; as of publication, Squarespace had not responded. Interestingly, Wix said it had not seen any “meaningful growth,” and the incremental increase on its platform since September 29 has remained limited.
"It's still too early, so the situation could change," said a spokesperson for Wix.
However, website hosting platform Hostinger told TechCrunch that .si has now become the second most popular domain suffix on its platform, after .com. The company found that approximately 4,300 people registered .si domains on September 30 and about 5,400 on October 1; more than three-quarters of all .si domains registered since September 23 were registered in just these past two days. Hostinger also found that over half of the buyers are from the United States and India.
Interestingly, Hostinger stated that only about 3% of .si domains on its platform are explicitly related to AI. The majority are classified as “uncategorized,” meaning the domain names cannot be matched to any specific category. The company noted that most .si domain registrations appear to be by individuals and businesses, though there is also a speculative element, as some may be purchasing these domains with the intent to resell them later.
At this point, my first thought was of a message I received earlier this week from an entrepreneur who mentioned that the resale price for .si domains has exceeded $1 million. Kim Than, CEO of Genius PR, a PR firm specializing in AI and crypto startups, told me he purchased the .si domain corresponding to his company’s name “to protect the brand in case this takes off like .ai did.” He did so because the price was low, so he felt, “Better to secure it now than potentially pay more later.”
Than believes domains are digital collectibles and wants to buy a few more while prices are still reasonable, potentially selling them later; he also mentioned that domains can be tokenized and traded on the blockchain, though he is unsure if .si domains are currently supported.
Several entrepreneur friends are also buying, because we believe this will be the next AI boom,” he continued. “No one knows how far it will go, but I’m willing to take the chance.”
.si could indeed become quite popular. President Trump's executive order states that "the capabilities of today's cutting-edge systems go far beyond mimicking or automating certain discrete aspects of human intelligence," and that they "increasingly represent not just artificial intelligence, but a new form of superintelligence."
Klaudijus Januitis, Head of Domain Services at Hostinger, told me he expects demand for .si to continue growing, but he does not believe this domain will replace .ai in the near term. Instead, as the entrepreneur and his friend mentioned earlier, Januitis said that .si is currently a more accessible and “cheaper alternative.”
“Slovenia will not experience what Anguilla has gone through,” he said, noting that one reason is that Anguilla charges a premium for using .ai, with the revenue going directly to the government; in contrast, the price for .si is only a small fraction, with proceeds going to the registry rather than the treasury. For example, on Hostinger, a .si domain costs about $12 per year, while a .ai domain costs $90 and requires a two-year registration commitment.
For Anguilla, .ai has become a second economy. For Slovenia, .si is just a nice additional revenue stream.