Slovenia's .si Domains Surge After Trump Renames AI
Slovenia’s registry counted fewer than 2,000 new .si domains in August and 46,066 in the past month. Speculators are listing early names for resale, and only about 3% of them mention AI.
Trump's Impact on .si Domains
Slovenia’s domain registry recorded 20,276 new .si web addresses in the 24 hours to Monday afternoon, according to the live counter on Register.si. The .si country code matches the initials of “super intelligence”, the name President Donald Trump (explore this topic) has told US agencies to use instead of AI.
Recent Activity
The registry counts 298,682 total .si domains. Klara Herman, a Register.si spokeswoman, told the BBC that August brought fewer than 2,000 new registrations. She called the activity in late September "unprecedented" but cautioned against attributing the whole rise to Trump.
Trump's Announcements
Trump told the UN General Assembly on September 22 that the word “artificial” made the technology “sound fake”. His White House speech stated that AI is “hereinafter officially called ‘Super Intelligence’”. On September 29, he signed an executive order telling federal agencies to use “Super Intelligence” and “SI” in official communications.
Rapid Growth
On September 30, the day after the order, the registry recorded 11,000 new .si domains, Herman told the BBC.
Market Dynamics
Security firm Netcraft counted 4,794 .si registrations in the 24 hours after the UN speech. By October 1, the daily figure had reached 13,603. More than half of the .si names bought early through the registrar Dynadot went up for resale on its aftermarket.
Netcraft also found 87 .com domains that pair well-known brands with the word “superintelligence”. Web host Hostinger reported that .si is now its second most popular extension after .com, with over half of its .si buyers in the US and India. Only about 3% of the names are explicitly about AI. A .si address costs about $12 a year on Hostinger, against $90 for .ai, which needs a two-year commitment.
"For Anguilla, .ai became a second economy. For Slovenia, .si is a nice bonus," said Klaudijus Januitis, head of domains at Hostinger.