The latest data shows that the country's top-level domain name ".ai" originally assigned to the British Overseas Territory of Anguilla, driven by the generative artificial intelligence boom, is becoming an important "new mine" for this small island with a population of only about 15,000. According to domain name statistics agency Domain Name Stat, the number of ".ai" domain names has exceeded 1 million on January 2 this year. This explosive growth follows the wave of global companies and developers rushing to register AI-related domain names after ChatGPT was launched at the end of 2022.
Anguilla obtained the ".ai" country top-level domain name from ICANN, which is responsible for allocating Internet domain names, in the mid-1990s. This was originally a rather accidental allocation, but now it has evolved into a considerable source of continuous financial revenue in the midst of the AI trend. According to official documents disclosed by the Anguilla government, the country earned 87 million East Caribbean dollars (approximately US$32 million) through domain name sales in 2023, accounting for approximately 22% of the total government revenue that year, of which approximately 354,000 ".ai" domain names were registered.
As the number of domain names exceeded one million in early 2026, related revenue also increased rapidly. In its 2026 budget speech, the Anguilla government noted that revenue from domain name registrations "continues to significantly exceed expectations." The budget report shows that the actual accounting of the "revenue from the sale of goods and services" far exceeds the original forecast, mainly due to the inflow of funds brought by the ".ai" domain name. This revenue is expected to reach 260.5 million East Caribbean dollars (approximately US$96.4 million) in the latest year. In 2023, "domain name registration revenue" will account for approximately 73% of this category of revenue; if estimated at a similar proportion, the ".ai" domain name itself may have brought Anguilla more than US$70 million in financial revenue in the past year.
In terms of the specific fee structure, Anguilla usually charges a registration fee of US$140 every two years for each ".ai" domain name, and forms a relatively stable source of recurring income - about 90% of the domain names will be renewed after two years. However, what really drives up the numbers is the premium trading of expired domain names in the auction market. In the ".ai" expired domain name auction conducted through the registrar Namecheap, individual short domain names can fetch high prices. For example, "you.ai" was sold for US$700,000 in September last year. In the past week alone, 31 ".ai" expired domain names were sold at auction, with a total price of approximately US$1.2 million, showing that the capital market's pursuit of high-quality AI-related domain names continues.
The pace at which AI technology is creating and destroying wealth is accelerating around the world. From the stock prices of chip companies to the valuations of startups, they are all fluctuating wildly. Anguilla has become a "hidden winner" of this wave in a rather unique way. In the absence of large technology companies and lack of local capital markets, this small Caribbean island has entered the upstream of the global AI economic chain with a just-right two-letter suffix. Through digital asset registration and trading, it has transformed external technology boom into real fiscal space. In the future, in the context of continued expansion of AI applications and increasingly fierce competition among corporate brands, the seemingly inconspicuous top-level domain name ".ai" may still bring Anguilla a steady stream of cash flow far exceeding its economic size.