.ai TLD accounts for ~50% of Anguilla state revenue (marginalrevolution.com)

Anguilla’s country-code top-level domain .ai has exploded in popularity alongside the AI boom: registrations jumped from about 48,000 in 2018 to roughly 870,000 year-to-date, and income from .ai now represents nearly half of the British Overseas Territory’s government revenue. For a territory of roughly 15,000 people, the “.ai” string has become a high-value digital resource—fueling registrations from startups, product names, personal brands and speculative investors drawn by the two-letter AI association. For the AI/ML community this highlights both opportunity and risk. Technically it’s a simple ccTLD—but its branding value has driven premium pricing, secondary markets, and aggressive registration activity, which affects name availability and costs for projects seeking clear, AI-aligned domains. Economically, Anguilla’s heavy reliance on .ai revenue creates governance and policy pressure: expect tighter registration rules, premium auctions, renewal strategies, or new taxes that could change long-term costs and ownership patterns. The situation also raises trademark, cybersquatting and regulatory questions as the domain becomes a de facto global asset tied to the growth and perception of AI technology.