US President Donald Trump’s decision to promote “super intelligence” as a new name for artificial intelligence has triggered a sharp increase in demand for Slovenian internet domain names.
Trump has been pushing the term “super intelligence”, or “SI”, as an alternative to “artificial intelligence” and “AI”. The change has attracted unexpected attention because Slovenia’s national internet domain is also .si.
Register.si, the official Slovenian domain registry, said registrations surged following Trump’s comments. According to the registry, about 44,000 .si web addresses were registered in September, compared with fewer than 2,000 in August. The organisation described the level of activity in late September as “unprecedented” over the previous year.
The surge followed Trump’s address to the United Nations General Assembly, where he argued that the word “artificial” made the technology sound less authentic and promoted “super intelligence” instead.
The increased interest has come from people and businesses looking to secure website names using the .si ending. Slovenia’s registry has advised trademark owners, companies and others without a .si domain to consider registering their names.
The increase has been particularly noticeable among international users. Register.si said the rise in registrations cannot be attributed entirely to Trump’s comments because interest had already been growing, but acknowledged that the discussion surrounding “SI” coincided with an exceptional additional surge.
The development has created an unusual connection between US technology policy and Slovenia’s internet infrastructure. The .si domain was originally created to identify websites associated with Slovenia, a country of about 2.1 million people.
The situation also highlights how changes in technology terminology can create unexpected commercial opportunities. Similar interest has previously surrounded other country-code domains, including Montenegro’s .me, which has been widely used for personal websites and online calls to action.
Trump’s administration has now formally moved to replace references to “Artificial Intelligence” and “AI” with “Super Intelligence” and “SI” in federal communications where legally permitted. The executive order does not immediately rewrite existing laws, contracts or regulations, but calls for work on a formal federal definition of the new terminology.
For Slovenia’s domain registry, the unexpected international attention has turned a presidential terminology change in Washington into a significant increase in demand for one of the country’s digital identifiers.