What 34,582 .si domains say about the Super Intelligence rush (and why so few mention AI)

Until a few weeks ago, .si was a quiescent nation domain used mostly by Slovenian businesses. Then Washington decided AI needed a new name. “Artificial,” turns out, appears fake. So now we’ve got “Super Intelligence.” Or SI, if you’re emotion fancy.

And so Slovenia, alongside 2 myriad group and extremely fairly priced domains, established itself in the center of the AI competition without always signing up for it.

Domain buyers acted fast. Between September 23 and October 7, Hostinger customers solitary registered 34,582 new .si top-level domain extensions. Yet of all the new .si names, lone concerning 3% merge an AI term.

What buyers wanted alternatively were short, elastic names, the benevolent group buy before they’ve decided what to build. That’s why the next few months volition inform us additional concerning .si than the final few weeks did.

What turned curiosity into a purchasing spree

On September 22, President Trump announced the new name at the UN General Assembly, and we started offering .si the next day. From September 23 to 28, registrations on our phase hovered at a few hundred a day. Curious, but barely a stampede.

Then, on September 29, an administrator command told US national agencies to use “Super Intelligence” in their authoritative communications. Our registrations went from 529 that day to 4,279 on September 30, eight times as many in a sole day.

Of the 34,582 .si domains our customers registered by October 7, additional than 90% came from September 30 onward.

And the hurry kept going. After a quieter weekend, Monday, October 5 set a new document at 5,654 registrations.

A few investors saw this coming

A small collection of domain investors had been purchasing .si names for months before anyone in Washington stated “SI” out loud.

The term itself had been about for a while. Philosopher Nick Bostrom popularized the term in his 2014 publish titled Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies, and AI companies afterward borrowed it for their names. Safe Superintelligence Inc. launched in June 2024, and Meta followed alongside Meta Superintelligence Labs.

From there, it was a abbreviated hop to “SI,” and an equal shorter one to .si.

When Domain Name Wire looked at who was purchasing .si domains in the archetypal fractional of the year, it established that of 35 community revenue from January to June 9, lone two went to companies that planned to use the domain – AI business Recursive, which paid $20,000 for its .si domain, and a Polish armed forces provision store. The remainder were nearly all investors purchasing from another sellers

Plenty of first bets akin these sit in a portfolio for years, waiting for a logic to matter. For .si, that logic arrived on September 29, and abruptly everyone wanted in.

Who’s purchasing .si, and who isn’t

If the SI hurry has a residence base, it’s the United States. Our US customers registered 8,917 .si domains, and Indian customers were correct rearward alongside 7,770. Together, the two countries document for nearly fractional of all .si registrations on our platform.

US buyers additionally had the biggest appetite on the document day. They registered 1,644 domains on October 5 alone, concerning 29% of that day’s total.

Then there’s Morocco, which came third alongside 1,674 domains, onward of much bigger markets akin the UK, the UAE, and Canada. Nobody on our squad saw that coming.

Those 1,674 domains came from fair 357 customers, an average of 4.7 all and the highest among our top markets, which points to a few occupied investors.

As for Slovenia, the nation the expansion belongs to, it didn’t equal expert our top 20.

AI names came a distant third

We sorted the new .si names by topic, fractional expecting AI to top the list. It didn’t arrive close.

Short names took archetypal place. Names alongside four characters or small made up 4,062 registrations, concerning one in eight of the total.

Tech-related names came second at 2,920. Names alongside definitive AI terms, the entire logic .si was in the news, came third alongside 1,120, concerning 3% of the total.

Some of those tech names are likely AI-adjacent, but equal if you figure all tech and AI name together, small than one in eight registrations autumn into either group.

Further downward the catalog were finance, energy, health, ecommerce, and education, affirmative a small collection of gambling names, since there’s continually a small collection of gambling names.

More than fractional the domains (58.3%) didn’t fit any topic at all, so these patterns depict the 41.7% we could classify. Our classification looks for recognizable words, so the unclassified heap apt holds invented words, individual names, and names in languages another than English.

Some of those could motionless be AI projects, since a brand name doesn’t have to citation AI at all.

But it’s clear, abbreviated names were the favorite of those we could classify. Names akin these can rotate into a product, a flank project, or a resale listing, and for now, buyers are choosing that elasticity complete a apparent plan.

Builders, flippers, or both?

Every domain hurry attracts two kinds of buyers: group who desire a name to use, and group who desire a name to sell.

Our 11,623 .si customers registered three .si domains all on average, which isn’t exactly hoarding.

Klaudijus Januitis, Head of Domains at Hostinger, says that as a mostly average assemblage alongside a occupied speculative corner.

“The average client is registering concerning three .si names, which tells us this is motionless mostly end users fairly than bulk speculators,” he said.

“There is a speculative element, alongside a small figure of customers registering dozens of abbreviated names each, but what we see is generic words fairly than brand names, so cybersquatting looks akin a small part of this. Brands are additionally starting to enroll their .si names to defend them, which is smarter than waiting.”

What the data can’t inform us yet is how many of these names volition rotate into genuine websites. Two weeks is too first to judge, since plentifulness of group enroll a name archetypal and get about to construction later. Sometimes much later.

Even Recursive, the AI business that paid $20,000 for Recursive.si rear in the spring, motionless sends visitors direct to its .com.

Other nation domains alongside a second meaning

Slovenia joins a small association of countries whose two alphabet picked up a second definition in the tech world. Membership hasn’t continually worked out, though.

.ai (Anguilla) is the achievement story. It went from a little-known Caribbean domain to the default location for AI companies, and about 90% of .ai domains renew following their two-year term. It lasted since companies built genuine products on it, lengthy following the first buyers had moved in.

.io (British Indian Ocean Territory) became the go-to for developer tools, helped by the fact that “I/O” is item developers already say all day. Then the UK’s 2024 accord to hand the Chagos Islands to Mauritius raised questions concerning what happens to the expansion if the district stops existing in its current form. A nation domain, it turns out, comes alongside the nation attached.

.ml (Mali) looked akin a ideal equivalent for device learning. Then years of liberated registrations through a third-party controller made it a favorite for spammers and scammers, and AI companies kept their distance.

Will .si do for Slovenia what .ai did for Anguilla? Klaudijus doesn’t think so:

“Anguilla is a particular case alongside lone concerning 15,000 group and premium .ai prices – domain revenue have rotate into one of its government’s biggest sources of revenue,” he said.

“Slovenia has 2 myriad people, an economics additional than 100 times larger, and .si is run as a national register at low prices, not as a income play. This is a genuine instant for .si and a fine narrative for Slovenia, but it won’t alter the country’s budget.”

For Slovenia, a fine outcome is a busier, better-known registry, and perchance a few additional group discovering anywhere the expansion comes from.

So, should you get a .si domain?

That depends on what you desire it for, and on how much belief you have in a brand-new buzzword.

The upside is uncomplicated to see. A .si domain expenses a fraction of an .ai one, anyone can enroll it, and short, brandable names are motionless out there. Just perchance not for long, judging by our numbers.

The capture is that SI is a extremely new label, and it comes from one government’s choice of words. If the remainder of the earth keeps saying AI, a name bought purely for its SI definition could end up definition a lot less.

Who should get one

• Brands that already own a matching .ai or .com name. Registering the .si type is cheap coverage against person alternatively getting there first.
• AI and tech startups looking for a abbreviated secondary domain. A .si plant fine as a short, catchy additional address. As the lone residence for a earth product, it’s a bigger gamble.
• Slovenian businesses and anyone targeting Slovenian customers. For them, .si was a fine choice before it was cool, and it motionless is.

Who should likely skip it

• Anyone paying aftermarket prices purely as a bet. Investors set resale prices correct now, and value depends on a term that may or may not stick. If a two-letter name expenses additional than your car, it’s value sleeping on.
• International businesses preparedness to use .si as their chief domain. Search engines may treat a .si website as Slovenian, which is awesome if your customers are in Ljubljana and small awesome if they’re in Lisbon.

The genuine test arrives alongside the renewal bill

Renewal invoices have a way of clarifying people’s priorities. When the archetypal .si renewals arrive due, investors sitting on dozens of abbreviated names volition have several decisions to make, and plentifulness of those names volition likely expire quietly.

People who built item on their .si domain are far additional apt to keep paying. That’s what made .ai stick.

Klaudijus doesn’t see .si taking the spotlight from .ai, but he does anticipate it to keep expanding alongside it.

“The .ai expansion remains the established residence for AI companies and volition keep growing, during .si gives a distinct benevolent of buyer a additional affordable option,” he said. “Both can develop flank by side.”

Until the archetypal renewals arrive, the finest sign to observe is whether .si names commencement turning into genuine websites. If they do, .si could rotate into a enduring residence for AI and tech projects.

If most remain parked, the SI hurry volition go downward as a extremely occupied few weeks for a small European registry, and Slovenia can go rear to being celebrated for Lake Bled.

Short names are going fast, so the finest archetypal stage is to hunt for the one you want. Once you discover a name that’s free, you can register a .si domain alongside Hostinger in a few clicks.