Slovenia’s .si domain registrations surge 2,199% after Trump executive order renames AI to ‘super intelligence
A presidential naming directive drove 11,000 .si registrations on September 30 alone, with 13,000 more the following day. Hostinger says .si became its second-most popular extension, though only 3% of new domains were explicitly AI-related.
Slovenia’s .si country domain has seen a dramatic spike in registrations after President Trump signed an executive order in late September 2026 directing all government agencies to replace the terms “AI” and “artificial intelligence” with “SI” and “super intelligence.” Registry SI, the organization that manages Slovenia’s domains, reported a 2,199% increase in .si domain purchases in September, with 11,000 new addresses registered on September 30 alone — the day after the order was signed — and nearly 13,000 new registrations in the following 24 hours.
Web hosting platform Hostinger reported that .si is now its second most popular domain extension after .com. On its platform, approximately 4,300 .si domains were registered on September 30 and around 5,400 on October 1, with more than three-quarters of all .si domains registered since September 23 coming in those final two days. More than half of buyers came from the U.S. and India. Notably, only around 3% of the newly registered .si domains on Hostinger are explicitly AI-related; most fall into an unclassified category.
The trend mirrors what happened with the .ai domain — associated with the Caribbean territory of Anguilla — during the earlier AI boom, when that extension generated significant revenue for the island. However, Klaudijus Januitis, head of domains at Hostinger, noted key differences: .si costs around $12 per year on Hostinger compared to $90 for a two-year .ai commitment, and revenue goes to the registry rather than Slovenia’s government treasury. “For Anguilla, .ai became a second economy. For Slovenia, .si is a nice bonus,” he said.
Some buyers appear motivated by brand protection or speculation. Kim Than, CEO of Genius PR, said he purchased the .si version of his company name to guard against future cost increases, comparing the opportunity to the early .ai boom. Januitis said he expects demand to keep growing but does not anticipate .si replacing .ai, describing it currently as a “more available and more affordable second option.”
Klara Herman, a spokesperson at Registry SI, told the BBC the surge was notable but was cautious about attributing it solely to the Trump executive order. GoDaddy said it does not yet host the .si domain, and Wix reported no meaningful uptick in registrations on its platform as of early October.