Slovenian domain registrations surge

The Slovenian domain extension .si registered thirteen times more domains in September 2026 than in August, according to reports. The national extension of Slovenia, which was born on April 1, 1992, with its official delegation to IANA, registered 46,066 new domains in September, compared to 3,515 in August.

Trump's terminology proposal sparks interest

This significant increase coincided with statements by Donald Trump, who proposed replacing the term "Artificial Intelligence" with "Super Intelligence." Trump made this proposal on September 22 before the United Nations General Assembly and signed an executive order on September 29 requesting federal American administrations to adopt this new terminology in their communications.

Management and rules of .si domains

The .si extension is managed by the Academic and Research Network of Slovenia (ARNES), which ensures the management and robustness of its DNS infrastructure. The extension is not reserved for Slovenian actors, as registration conditions allow both individuals and legal entities without imposing nationality or residence conditions.

Registration rules and pricing

The allocation is based on the first come, first served principle, subject to the registry's rules. A domain name must consist of between 2 and 63 characters and cannot start or end with a hyphen or contain two consecutive hyphens in the third and fourth positions. Registration is possible for a period of one to five years, with renewal.

Pricing and intermediary involvement

The registry displays a price of 10 € excluding taxes for the registration or annual renewal of a domain, which has been in effect since January 1, 2023. This amount corresponds to the price charged to registrars and not necessarily to the one paid by the end user. ARNES specifies that it does not intervene in the setting of prices practiced by these intermediaries, and the cost for an owner depends on the chosen provider and any additional services.

Timing of domain registrations

The figures from the Slovenian registry show that on September 23, the day after Trump's speech, the registry already showed 4,794 new registrations in the last 24 hours. After the signing of the executive order, this rate exceeded 13,000 daily registrations. However, these figures are not sufficient to attribute the entire increase to the American president, as a rise had already begun before the executive order, and the arrival of new registrars also contributed to the acceleration.

Motivations behind domain purchases

The influx of requests does not necessarily indicate a widespread adoption of .si by AI companies. Some buyers are trying to reserve short or evocative names in the hope of reselling them if the term "Super Intelligence" becomes firmly established in professional vocabulary. Observations by Netcraft, a company specializing in monitoring Internet activity, support this hypothesis.

Comparison with the .ai domain extension

The phenomenon recalls that of the .ai, the national extension of Anguilla, which has become a standard domain name for artificial intelligence companies.