The integration of artificial intelligence into daily life has raised questions and concerns for many about the path forward for humanity. But in Anguilla, a small Caribbean island east of Puerto Rico, the AI boom has made the country rich.
British territories charge a fee for each registration of an Internet address ending in “.ai'', which is a domain name assigned to a British territory, such as “.fr'' in France or “.jp'' in Japan. Anguilla has recently been inundated with domain name requests as companies looking for internet addresses to communicate are at the forefront of the AI boom, like Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company's X.ai website are doing.
For each domain registration, the Anguilla government earns anywhere from $140 to several thousand dollars from website names sold at auction, according to government data. Last year, the Anguilla government earned about $32 million from these fees. This represents more than 10 percent of the gross domestic product of a territory of approximately 16,000 people and an area of 35 square miles.
“Some people are calling this a windfall,” said Anguilla Prime Minister Ellis Webster. “We call it God smiling on us.”
Mr Webster said the government would use the money to provide free health care to people over 70 and pumped out millions of dollars to complete the construction of schools and vocational training centres. The government also allocated funds for airport improvements. Double the budget for sports activities, events and facilities. And he said he had increased funding for citizens seeking treatment abroad.
The island, which relies heavily on tourism, was hit hard by pandemic travel restrictions and a devastating hurricane in 2017. Revenue from .ai domains gave the country the boost it needed.
“I had no idea there was so much potential,” Webster said.
Anguilla's control of .ai dates back to the early days of the internet, when countries and regions were allocated portions of cyberspace. Anguilla received the .ai, but the Anguilla government, which has its own site www.gov.ai., didn't place much importance on it until it started bringing in domain names in the millions. Officials aren't sure how long the benefits will last, but they predict domain names will bring in about the same amount of revenue in 2024 as last year.
This isn't the first time we've made a big change for the grateful domain owner. Tuvalu, a chain of islands northeast of Australia, sold the rights to its .tv suffix to a Canadian entrepreneur for $50 million, and used the money to install electricity on the remote island, create scholarships and access to membership. The money was used to raise funds for the procedure. united nations.
Meanwhile, the South Pacific island of Niue gave an American businessman the rights to the .nu suffix in exchange for internet access in the 1990s. The island was later swindled out of cash made by selling domain names to thousands of Scandinavians attracted by the suffix “nu”, which means “now” in Swedish, Danish and Dutch. insisted.
But Anguilla realized early on that it couldn't afford to miss out on this unexpected bonanza.
“It was just lucky for us,” Mr Webster said:
Brian Horst Contributed to the report.