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Anguilla has seen a significant surge in government revenue, estimated at $70 million last year, primarily driven by the booming registration of over 1 million '.ai' domain names. This unexpected windfall is attributed to the global interest in Artificial Intelligence technologies.
AI 生成摘要
安圭拉政府去年的收入預計達到七千萬美元，這主要歸功於超過一百萬個「.ai」域名的大量註冊。這筆意外的財富增長，與全球對人工智能技術的濃厚興趣息息相關。
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Data from Domain Name Stat reveals that the top-level domain originally assigned to the British Overseas Territory of Anguilla passed the milestone in early January.
From Sandisk shareholders to vibe coders, AI is making — and breaking — fortunes at a rapid pace.
One unlikely beneficiary has been the British Overseas Territory of Anguilla, which lucked into a future fortune when ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, gave the island the “.ai” top-level domain in the mid-1990s. Indeed, since ChatGPT’s launch at the end of 2022, the gold rush for websites to associate themselves with the burgeoning AI technology has seen a flood of revenue for the island of just ~15,000 people.
In 2023, Anguilla generated 87 million East Caribbean dollars (~$32 million) from domain name sales, some 22% of its total government revenue that year, with 354,000 “.ai” domains registered.
As of January 2, 2026, the number of “.ai” domains surpassed 1 million, per data from Domain Name Stat — suggesting that the nation’s revenue from “.ai” has likely soared, too. This is confirmed in the government’s 2026 budget address, in which Cora Richardson Hodge, the premier of Anguilla, said, “Revenue from domain name registration continues to exceed expectations.”
The report mentions that receipts from the sale of goods and services came in way ahead of expectations, thanks primarily to the revenue from “.ai” domains, which is forecast to hit EC$260.5 million (~$96.4 million) for the latest year. In 2023, domain name registrations were about 73% of that wider category. Assuming a similar share of that category for this year would suggest that the territory has raked in more than ~$70 million from “.ai” domains in the past year.
Anguilla typically charges $140 for a two-year domain registration, creating a steady stream of income, as some 90% of domains renew after two years. But auctions for expired “.ai” domains, sold via domain name registrar Namecheap, are where bigger numbers roll in — for example, the domain “you.ai” was bought for $700,000 last September, and even in the past week, 31 expired “.ai” domains were sold at a total price of ~$1.2 million, per domain sale tracker NameBio.
Seeking to reduce its dependency on US tech, the EU is working to build out its own “EuroStack.” Recent tensions between the US and EU have only made this effort more urgent.
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Tesla reports earnings after the bell Wednesday.
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A new Gallup survey shows that tech employees, probably unsurprisingly, are leading the charge.
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The smarter, AI-powered Siri that Apple previewed back in June 2024 — capable of using personal data and on-screen context to complete tasks — is finally set to arrive in the second half of February, according to Bloomberg. Meanwhile, a completely overhauled and fully integrated chatbot version of Siri will follow in beta this summer, the outlet reports in an article detailing the executive shake-ups and Google partnership that led Apple to this point.
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