Caribbean island grows rich thanks to world interest in artificial intelligence

The island of Anguilla, which is a UK territory in the eastern Caribbean Sea, has started to receive several times more money from registrations of its ".ai" domain, which is consistent with the abbreviation of artificial intelligence, AI, writes Bloomberg.

The manager of this domain, Vince Cate, told the agency that over the past year, the number of registrations for websites ending in ".ai" has doubled to nearly 287,500. According to him, the domain registration fee in Anguilla will be 25 to 30 million US dollars this year.

According to publicly available data, Anguilla earned $7.4 million from .ai domain registrations in 2021, and is expected to earn about $8.3 million in 2023.

"Since November 30 [of 2022], things are very different here," Cate said, referring to the date when the ChatGPT, working with AI, launched publicly.

Bloomberg notes that if the amount received from domain registration fees exceeds $25 million, it will make up almost a quarter of the Anguilla Treasury's projected budget—of about $107 million—for the current year.
The price of this domain can vary, but registrants must pay Anguilla a fixed price of $140 for two years of registration at that address. In the first half of the year, that amount was $120.

The authorities of the island territory did not wish to comment.