Caribbean islands are making millions of money from the AI ​​boom

When the Internet was still in its early stages in the 1980s, countries were given their own website addresses to navigate this early new online world. .us for the Us and .uk from UK.

Ultimately, almost every country and territory had domains based on English names or their own language names. This included Anguilla, a Caribbean island where the address was landed.

It is unknown to Anguilla at the time, but this will become the future jackpot.

Due to the ongoing boom in artificial intelligence (AI), more and more companies and individuals are registering new websites with Anguilla, the UK's overseas territory, with .ai tags.

US high-tech boss Dharmesh Shah reported $700,000 (£519,000) to addresses earlier this year.

Speaking to the BBC, Shah said he bought it because he had the idea of ​​an AI product that allowed people to create digital versions that allow people to perform certain tasks on their behalf.

According to websites tracking domain name registrations, the number of .AI websites has increased more than 10 times over the past five years, doubled in the past 12 months alone.

The challenge for Anguilla, with a population of just 16,000, is how to capitalize on this lucrative fortune and turn it into a long-term, sustainable source of income.

Like other small Caribbean islands, Anguilla's economy is built on the bedrock of tourism. Recently, it has attracted visitors, particularly in the high-end travel market from the US.

Anguilla's Statistics Bureau says there were a record number of visitors to the island last year, with 111,639 people on the coast.

However, Anguilla's tourism sector is vulnerable to hurricane damage every fall. Located northeasterly of the Caribbean arc, Anguilla is entirely within the Hurricane Belt of the North Atlantic.

So increasing your income by selling website addresses plays a key role in diversifying the island's economy, increasing your resilience due to the financial damage caused by the storm. This is something the International Monetary Fund (IMF) pointed out in a recent report on Anguilla.

The 2025 draft budget document states that the Angilia government won 105.5 million East Caribbean dollars ($39 million, £29 million) in 2024 from the sale of domain names. This was almost a quarter (23%) of total revenue last year. Tourism accounts for around 37%, according to the IMF.

The Anguilian government expects to increase to 132 million Caribbean dollars this year to $132 million by 2026. This is more than 850,000 AI domains currently exist, starting from less than 50,000 in 2020.

As a UK overseas territory, Anguilla is under British sovereignty, but has a high internal autonomy rate.

The UK has had a major impact on the island's defense and security, providing financial aid during times of crisis. After Hurricane Irma caused severe damage in 2017, the US gave Anguilla £60 million over five years to meet the repair bill.

The UK's foreign, federal and development offices have told the BBC that they welcome Anguilla's efforts to “find innovative ways to provide economic growth” to “help Anguilla contribute to financial self-sufficiency.”

To manage the revenues of burgeoning domain names, Anguilla signed a five-year agreement in October 2024 with a US high-tech company called Identity Digital, which specializes in Internet Domain Name Registries.

Earlier this year, Identity Digital announced that it had moved from Anguilla's servers to its own global server network where all .ai domains are hosted. This is to prevent disruption from future hurricanes or other risks to the island's infrastructure, such as power outages.

The exact cost of the AI ​​address has not been disclosed, but it is said that registration prices start from around $150 to $200. There is the same renewal fee every two years.

At the same time, more demanding domain names are being auctioned, with some winning hundreds of thousands of US dollars. These owners must pay the same small renewal fee as everyone else.

In all cases, the Anguilla government is earning sales revenue, and ID Digital is said to cut around 10%. However, he appears to be sensitive to the topic as he refused to interview this article.

Currently, the most expensive .ai domain name purchase is Shah's You.ai.

Shah has other .ai domain addresses in his name, self-proclaimed A-Enthusiast and co-founder of US software company Hubspot, but the flagship You.ai has not yet operated as he has been busy with other projects.

Shah says he buys a domain name for himself, but you'll see him sell sometimes, “If I don't have an immediate plan for it, and there's another entrepreneur who wants to do something with the name.”

Shah believes others and companies will soon set new records at the highest price for purchasing .ai domains. This is the ongoing excitement around AI.

But he adds:

Over the past few weeks, .ai auctions have been selling large six-figure sales. In July, Cloud.ai sold for the reported $600,000, while Law.ai sold for $350,000 earlier this month.

However, Anguilla's position is not unheard of. Similarly, the Tuvalu nation of small Pacific Island signed an exclusive agreement in 1998 to obtain a license for the .TV domain name.

The report says that this was granted exclusive rights to US domain name registry companies, and Verisign rose to $5 million in exchange for a two-million year.

Ten years later, as the internet expands exponentially, Tuvalu's finance minister Lotoala Metia said Verisign paid “peanuts” the right to execute the domain name. The country signed a new agreement in 2021 with another domain provider, GoDaddy.

Anguilla operates differently, handing over the management of domain names in the revenue sharing model rather than fixed payments.

Sustainable acquisition of this new income was a major goal for the island. The increased revenues are expected to allow new airports to be built to promote tourism growth, as well as improving funding for public infrastructure and access to healthcare.

When the number of registered .ai domains is hurt towards the million mark, Angillian hopes that this money will be managed safely and invested in the future.