Caribbean Island of Anguilla Gets Big Lift from AI

The Caribbean island of Anguilla is getting a economic lift from companies registering internet addresses through the British territory.

The companies are seeking to show they are involved in the artificial intelligence (AI) industry. One way to do this is to secure an internet address that ends in .ai. Anguilla owns the right to issue the .ai domain ending to organizations. It gained that right in the 1990s, based on the territory's name.

Other nations and territories have similar control over domain registrations with letters with links to their name. For Anguilla, the popular rise of AI has permitted the territory to make a lot of money from new registrations ending in .ai.

Some examples from the technology world include Google, which uses google.ai for its AI offerings. The chief of social media service X, Elon Musk, chose to register x.ai as the homepage for X‘s Grok AI tool. And AI search engine Perplexity uses perplexity.ai.

In Anguilla, earnings from web domain registration increased by four times last year to $32 million as the rise in AI systems increased sharply. The earnings now account for about 20 percent of the total amount the government brings in. Before the increased interest in AI, the amount remained at about five percent.

Anguilla's government – which uses the gov.ai domain – collects money each time an .ai web address is re-registered. It also gets paid when new addresses are registered and expired ones are sold off to new buyers. Some registrations have brought in tens of thousands of dollars.

Anguilla is 91 square kilometers and has a population of about 16,000. Its ocean areas and natural offerings bring in foreign visitors. But the island has faced economic difficulties since the COVID-19 pandemic, and it can be hit by powerful storms.

Anguilla does not have its own AI industry. But the territory's premier, Ellis Webster, hopes that will one day change. He told the Associated Press it was just luck that Anguilla was assigned the .ai domain. It could also have gone to nearby Antigua, which has the same letters in its name.

Webster said the money from domain registrations eases pressure on government finances and helps support several important projects. But, he said the territory must be careful not to completely depend on it.

“You can't predict how long this is going to last,” Webster told the AP. “So I don't want to have our economy and our country and all our programs just based on this.“

To help keep up with the explosive growth in .ai registrations, Anguilla signed a deal with a U.S.-based company, Identity Digital, to manage the process. The company has said it plans to add all .ai domain services to its systems by the start of next year.

There are currently more than 533,000 .ai web domains, an increase of more than 10 times since 2018. Webster predicts domain-related earnings will keep rising, possibly even doubling this year from last year's $32 million.

He noted the money can finance the expansion of the territory's airport, provide free medical care for older citizens and complete a technology job training center for high school students.

The income also provides “budget support” for other projects the government plans to launch, Webster said. One of those is a national development program that includes money for hurricane recovery efforts.

I'm Bryan Lynn.

The Associated Press reported this story. Bryan Lynn adapted the report for VOA Learning English.

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domain – n. a subdivision of the internet that links websites with digital addresses

expire – v. to become no longer effective

manage – v. to do something or deal with something successfully

assign –v. to officially give something through a process to someone else such as a domaine name