The .si domain, Slovenia's country code, went from 3,515 new registrations in August 2026 to 46,066 in September, according to registry figures reported by Domain Name Wire. The reason is two letters. President Trump wants the federal government to call artificial intelligence "super intelligence," or SI, and domain buyers noticed that .si spells the same thing. Now the Department of Education has rebuilt its official AI page around the new term, which shows the rename moving out of speeches and into the day-to-day websites of government. Here is what set off the boom, what changed at ed.gov, and what to watch next.

What caused the .si domain boom

The .si domain boom came in three steps over about ten days, and investors were early to each one.

• September 19: Trump shared a social media poll about renaming AI. Netcraft traced the first spike in .si registrations to the days right after it.
• September 22: In a speech at the United Nations, Trump said the US would refer to AI as super intelligence. In the 25 hours after the speech, new .si registrations outpaced new .ai registrations, according to Netcraft.
• September 29: Trump signed Executive Order 14434, "Inaugurating the Era of Super Intelligence." It tells federal agencies to use "Super Intelligence" and "SI" in place of "artificial intelligence" and "AI" in official correspondence, websites, reports and policy documents, "to the maximum extent permitted by law." It ran in the Federal Register on October 2.

Registrations sped up again after the order. The registry counted about 11,000 new .si names on September 30 alone, and Domain Name Wire reported roughly 12,000 a day in the first days of October. The registry's own snapshots tell the same story: about 190,000 .si domains in early September, 219,000 on September 28, and 393,793 by October 11.

Price did the rest. The registry charges about €10 a year wholesale, and retail runs around $11 to $12. Domain Name Wire puts .ai at about $160 wholesale with a two-year minimum. Anyone can register a .si name, with no Slovenian address or company required. A cheap, open extension that reads like a buzzword is exactly what speculators look for. It is the same thing that made short, catchy names so easy to sell back in 2010.

Who is actually buying

Mostly investors, by every measure published so far. Netcraft found that about 52% of the .si names registered at Dynadot between the poll and the UN speech were listed for resale on Dynadot's own marketplace. It also counted more than 44,000 .si names that match an existing .ai name, about 22% of the whole zone at the time.

Hostinger told TechCrunch that .si had become its second most popular extension after .com. More than half of its buyers were in the US and India, and only about 3% of the names were AI-related. Meanwhile Domain Name Wire found no startups launching on .si in the prior 30 days, against 50 that launched on .ai.

The registry itself has stayed cautious. Spokesperson Klara Herman was careful not to credit the growth only to President Trump. One rumor did not hold up: a fact check by Lead Stories found no evidence that Jared Kushner owns .si names, and his firm, Affinity Partners, denied it.

What the Department of Education did

The Department of Education has moved its AI guidance page to the new name. The page that used to be "Artificial Intelligence (AI) Guidance" now loads as "Super Intelligence (SI) Guidance" at a new web address, and the old address forwards to it. We checked it on November 7.

The change runs through the whole page. The department's inventory of how it uses the technology now lists entries like "Generative SI: Text Generation" and "Generative SI: Code Generation" across offices from Federal Student Aid to the Institute of Education Sciences. The same table says the student aid chatbot, Aidan, has served more than 2.6 million unique customers.

The swap is not complete. The page still points to Executive Order 14179, an earlier AI order, and one sentence talks about "SI advancement" and "secure usage of AI" side by side. We also found no press release about the change in the department's newsroom. It reads like a quiet rewrite to follow the order, not a new policy for schools.

So why does it matter for domains? Demand for .si runs on how often people see "SI" used for AI. Each agency that relabels its pages puts the term in front of more students, parents, grant applicants and reporters. The Department of Education is one of the most visited, so its switch counts for more than most. Still, nothing on the page mentions domain names, and the order applies only to federal agencies. It places no duty on businesses, schools or the public.

What to expect next

A federal definition of SI. The order gives the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology 60 days to send proposed legislative language defining "Super Intelligence," which puts the deadline in late November 2026, as Arnold & Porter notes. If Congress takes it up, SI becomes a term in law. If it stalls, SI stays a branding choice inside the executive branch, and that is a much weaker story for .si.

More agencies relabeling pages. Expect more government pages to change from AI to SI over the coming weeks. Each one keeps the term in the news, but none of them makes a .si name worth more on its own.

Asking prices far above sales. Listings are not sales. A founder told TechCrunch that .si names were reselling for over a million dollars, but no such sale has been confirmed. Treat big asking prices the way we treated inflated domain appraisals years ago: as a number someone hopes for, not what the market pays. Hostinger's head of domains put it plainly: "Slovenia will not see what Anguilla saw," a reference to the .ai windfall.

The renewal test. Most names bought this fall were registered for one year. When renewals come due in the fall of 2027, the share that drops will show how much of this boom was speculation. Low fees make holding cheap, but thousands of names with no buyer still add up.

Typos and disputes. Netcraft says fraud on .si is low so far, but it warns about typo traffic, since "s" sits next to "a" on a keyboard. Brand owners should also know that .si disputes go through the registry's own procedure, not the UDRP used for .com. Law firm Marks & Clerk says a complaint must rely on rights that are valid in Slovenia, so a US trademark alone may not be enough.

What to do about it

If you own a brand, register your exact name in .si now. At about $12 a year it costs far less than winning it back later, especially if your only trademark is in the US.

If you invest in domains, remember the .co rush. In late 2010, GoDaddy briefly made .co the default extension for new registrations, as our news digest that week covered. By 2012 the head of the .CO registry was calling investors cybersquatters after courting their money at launch, as our .CO registry post recorded. Carrying a new extension early does not always pay. With .si, favor short, real words a company would build on over the hundredth "something-SI" variation.

If you are naming a startup, .ai is still where AI companies launch. A .si name can make a cheap redirect or brand guard, but no early data shows founders building on it.

Frequently asked questions

What is a .si domain?

It is the country code domain for Slovenia, in use since the early 1990s and run by Register.si, part of the Slovenian research network ARNES. It has nothing to do with AI except the letters.

Can Americans register a .si domain?

Yes. Individuals and companies anywhere can register one without a local presence in Slovenia.

How much does a .si domain cost?

The registry charges about €10 a year wholesale, and most registrars sell it for around $11 to $12 a year. Premium names on the resale market cost whatever the owner asks.

Does the executive order make businesses say "SI"?

No. It covers federal executive branch agencies only. It places no duties on companies or the public and has no penalties.

Did the Department of Education say anything about .si domains?

No. It renamed its AI guidance page and use case list to "Super Intelligence (SI)." It said nothing about domain names, and we found no press release about the change.

Will .si replace .ai?

Not on current evidence. Investors drove most of the boom, few names are AI-related, and new startups are still choosing .ai. That could change if SI becomes the everyday word, but it has not happened yet.

The bottom line

The .si boom is real in numbers and thin in actual use so far. A presidential push to rename AI, an executive order and now quiet changes on agency sites like ed.gov have kept "SI" in the news, and that is what moves .si registrations. Watch three things: whether a federal definition of SI reaches Congress after the late November deadline, whether real companies start launching on .si, and how many names renew in the fall of 2027. Until then, brand owners should buy their name, and investors should buy only what they would be happy to hold for years.

References

1. Domain Name Wire, "46k .si domains registered in September, momentum growing after Trump's executive order," October 1, 2026. domainnamewire.com
2. Domain Name Wire, "Slovenia's .si domain grows more than 15% in wake of Trump's UN speech," September 28, 2026. domainnamewire.com
3. Netcraft, "Slovenian .SI Domain Registrations Outpace .AI," September 24, 2026 (updated October 1). netcraft.com
4. Netcraft, "'Super Intelligence' Executive Order Fuels Nearly Hundredfold Increase in .si Domain Registrations," October 1, 2026. netcraft.com
5. TechCrunch, "Slovenia's .si domain sees a surge in registrations after Trump's 'super intelligence' order," October 2, 2026. techcrunch.com
6. Arnold & Porter, "What's in a Name? Executive Order Directs Agencies to Say 'Super Intelligence,' Not 'Artificial Intelligence,'" October 13, 2026. arnoldporter.com
7. U.S. Department of Education, "Super Intelligence (SI) Guidance," checked November 7, 2026. ed.gov
8. Marks & Clerk, "From AI to SI: A new challenge for brand owners?," October 20, 2026. marks-clerk.com
9. Lead Stories via Yahoo News, "Fact Check: NO Evidence Jared Kushner Bought .si Domain Names Recently," updated October 13, 2026. yahoo.com
10. Register.si, the .si registry. register.si