Technology and Science · updated 2h ago · 2 min read
Trump Orders “SI” Rebrand, Driving 11,000 New .si Registrations In Slovenia
US executive order requires federal agencies to use 'Super Intelligence' and 'SI' instead of AI. Slovenia's .si registrations surged in September to about 44,000–46,000 amid the rebrand.
Whether the surge is cyber-squatting.
4 of 5 outlets skipped it: netcraft reports about half of Dynadot-held names were resale-offered..
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BBC
“she was ‘cautious’ about attributing the entire increase to just Trump's comments.”Read the original ↗
Tech Digest
“Analysts suggest that a significant driver behind the massive influx of registrations is speculative cyber-squatting.”Read the original ↗
The BBC emphasises caution about attribution and corrects away cyber-squatting wording. Tech Digest leans into speculative cyber-squatting as a driver.
Trump renames AI to SI
Donald Trump’s executive order told U.S. federal agencies to use “SI” and “super intelligence” instead of “Artificial Intelligence” and “AI,” and the terminology shift immediately fed demand for Slovenia’s country-code domain “.si.” Register.si spokeswoman Klara Herman said, “44,000 web addresses with the .si suffix had been registered in September,” and she contrasted that with “less than 2,000” in August. Trump made the case for the rebrand during his speech to the United Nations General Assembly in New York, saying, “The use of the word artificial makes it sound fake.”
Register.si recorded “11,000 new registrations” on 30 September, and the registry said the late-September activity was “unprecedented” compared with the previous 12 months. The executive order also specified that “SI will take the place of AI in official correspondence, websites, reports and other forms of communication,” while leaving room for a 60-day proposal for a federal-specific definition of “Super Intelligence.”
Registrations surge, providers differ
Hostinger reported that it registered about 4,300 .si domains on September 30 and about 5,400 on October 1, and it said more than half of its buyers came from the United States and India. Klara Herman told the BBC that she was “cautious about attributing the entire increase solely to” Trump’s comments, even as she said registrations “stood out very clearly” against other months. BWix said it was not seeing any “meaningful uptick” and described activity since September 29 as minimal, while GoDaddy said it still does not host the .si extension.
TechCrunch said Registry SI counted 11,000 new addresses on September 30 and “almost 13,000” new .si domain names in the past 24 hours, and it framed the surge as echoing the earlier .ai boom. Hostinger estimated that only around 3% of registered .si domains were explicitly related to artificial intelligence, and it said most were “unclassified” because their names did not match a specific theme.
Speculation, security, and stakes
The rush for .si names turned the Slovenian suffix into a target for speculation, and the local account warned that typosquatting risk rises because the “s” key sits right next to the “a” key on a QWERTY keyboard. Netcraft was cited for finding that “more than 44,000 .si domains already share their name with an existing .ai domain,” creating a pathway for users to land on fraudulent pages by hitting the wrong key. Register.si advised brand holders to secure their .si domain as soon as possible, and the registry’s caution aligned with the broader framing of .si as an opportunity created by the U.S. vocabulary change.
The Slovenian registry also said it was cautious about comparisons with Anguilla’s .ai windfall, and it rejected reports that the surge was generating millions of euros for Slovenia. CircleID reported that Register.si charges registrars €10 per domain and that Domain Name Wire estimated roughly “€300,000 in additional September registry revenue,” while also noting that third-party measurements put .si demand above .ai during the final days of September.