The island of just 16,000 is raking in tens of millions of dollars and expects that figure will double next year. But the windfall is mostly down to good luck.
boom has benefited chatbot makers, computer scientists and Nvidia investors. It's also providing an unusual windfall for Anguilla, a tiny island in the's debut nearly two years ago heralded the dawn of the AI age and kicked off a digital gold rush as companies scrambled to stake their own claims by acquiring websites that end in .ai.Blessed with coral reefs, clear waters and palm-fringed white sand beaches, the island is a haven for uber-wealthy tourists.
Anguilla's government, which uses the gov.ai home page, collects a fee every time a .ai web address is renewed, Identity Digital Chief Strategy Officer Ram Mohan said the fee — $140 for two years — won't change. It also gets paid when new addresses are registered and expired ones are sold off. Some sites have fetched tens of thousands of dollars.
"And then all of a sudden there's a new fad comes up in the next year or two, and then we are left now having to make significant expenditure cuts, removing programs."To help keep up with the explosive growth in domain registrations, Anguilla said Tuesday it's signing a deal with a US-based domain management company, Identity Digital, to help manage the effort.
Webster expects domain-related revenues to rise further, and could even double this year from last year's $US32 million.
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