The island of Anguilla is expected to generate more than $30 million this year from the sale of “.ai” domains.
At first glance, apps like Google Bard or ChatGPT don’t have much in common with a A small island located in the Caribbean Sea With less than 15,000 inhabitants. However, the Anguilla Island It has become a territory Very useful to him boom The artificial intelligence we experience, and the island is expected to create About 30 million dollars By the end of this year.
There is a secret Country Code Top Level Domain This region is assigned by ICANN (the non-profit organization responsible for assigning and managing Internet domain names). In the same way that websites with most of their traffic from Spain are assigned the “.es” domain and those from Mexico are assigned the “.mx” domain. The suffix “.i” associated with the island of AnguillaIn recent years it has become one of the most sought-after by companies focusing their operations in the field of artificial intelligence.
The island of Anguilla is striking gold thanks to AI-focused startups
It was in 1990 on Anguilla Island, A British Tropical TerritoryInternet domains ending in “.ai” began to be assigned to businesses and island residents who wanted to register their own web pages.
In its early days, the suffix did not attract international attention. A decade later everything changed a bit with the advent of artificial intelligence, and a proliferation of companies and startups focused on the field.
The leaders of the island were quick, and for some years now, The island began charging $50 a year Those companies should focus on developing artificial intelligence tools Register or renew a new domain An existing one. By the end of 2021, This decision has already made a profit of 5 million dollars That went to the treasury of the island government.
Recently, This number has increased manifold Following the massive increase in companies deciding to acquire domains with the “.ai” suffix, every day we see new startups returning to the top-level domain assigned to the island of Anguilla to clarify their focus on artificial intelligence. Without going further, a few days ago we talked about the image creation tool Ideogram.ai and at the end of 2020, the most expensive domain in the history of the island “expert.ai” was sold. day 95,000 Euros. Other companies like Facebook, Stability.ai or X have also contributed to increase the income of this small island, which is already distributed to date. About 300,000 domains end in .ai.
Thus, for the current year, it is expected The island’s profits associated with this practice reach 30 million dollarsAnd according to experts, this is probably the beginning and there will be even more interest in “.ai” domains in the future.
