A change in Washington’s preferred name for AI has sent buyers rushing toward a domain that was already available, but rarely fashionable. Slovenia’s .si registrations reportedly rose 2,199% after US President Donald Trump directed federal agencies to call AI “superintelligence,” or SI.
A sudden rush for two letters
The timing was sharp. Registry SI recorded 11,000 new addresses on September 30, the day after the directive was signed, followed by nearly 13,000 over the next 24 hours.
Hostinger saw a similar spike among its customers, though its figures cover a different set of registrations. The hosting platform recorded about 4,300 .si purchases on September 30 and 5,400 on October 1. More than three-quarters of its .si domains registered from September 23 onward were bought on those two days.
Hostinger said .si became its second most popular domain ending, behind .com. More than half of the buyers were in the United States and India. A country-code domain associated with Slovenia had, briefly, become a global wager on a change in government vocabulary.
Most buyers were not building AI sites
The branding tells a less dramatic story. Only 3% of the .si domains registered through Hostinger were clearly connected to AI. Most could not be classified by the platform, a pattern it said suggested substantial speculation.
Some buyers had a more practical reason. Kim Tan, CEO of PR agency Genius PR, said he bought the .si version of the company’s name to protect its brand while the domain remained inexpensive. The logic is familiar from the .ai boom: buy a relevant address before someone else does, or before its price rises enough to make the decision feel less clever.
A cheaper alternative to .ai
Price is the obvious difference. Hostinger charges about $12 a year for .si, while .ai costs about $90 annually and requires a two-year commitment. The money from .si registrations goes to the registrar, rather than directly to Slovenia’s public finances.
Hostinger’s domain chief, Klaudijus Janujitis, expects demand to continue, but does not think .si will overtake .ai. He sees it instead as a more affordable backup. The distinction matters: .ai has become a major source of income for Anguilla, while .si is more of a bonus for Slovenia.
The spike shows how quickly a policy announcement can turn an obscure domain into a speculative asset. It does not show that thousands of new AI companies suddenly needed Slovenian web addresses. On Hostinger’s figures, most buyers appear to have been betting on the letters, not building around the technology.