Slovenia's .si Domain Surges 2,199% After Trump SI Order

Slovenia's .si country-code domain logged a 2,199% jump in September purchases, Registry SI spokesperson Klara Herman told the BBC, after President Trump signed an executive order instructing federal agencies to refer to AI as "super intelligence." TechCrunch reports that 11,000 new .si addresses were created on September 30, the day after the order, and roughly 13,000 more in the 24 hours that followed.

More than 75% of September's .si registrations landed in the last two days of the month, with over half of buyers based in the US and India. On Hostinger alone, 4,300 .si domains sold on September 30 and 5,400 on October 1. Price is a big part of the appeal: on the registrar, .si runs about $12 a year while .ai costs $90 and requires a two-year commitment.

The comparison to .ai, Anguilla's country code that quietly became a de facto AI branding standard, is on everyone's mind. Klaudijus Januitis, head of domains at Hostinger, thinks it won't repeat. "Slovenia will not see what Anguilla saw," he said. "For Anguilla, .ai became a second economy. For Slovenia, .si is a nice bonus."

Only about 3% of the new .si registrations are explicitly AI-related, which suggests most buyers are hedging rather than building. Kim Than, CEO of Genius PR, told TechCrunch he bought .si domains "to protect the brand in case this takes off like .ai," reasoning it was cheaper to "secure it now than potentially pay a lot more later." Herman herself was cautious about pinning the whole surge on Trump.