2023-09-26 17:05:09
Culture Anguilla
Why suddenly the whole world is interested in this island
As of: 5:53 p.m. | Reading time: 3 minutes
The rich used to vacation here
What: picture alliance / prisma
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A tiny Caribbean island is currently experiencing a sensational boom. Elon Musk and 287,000 others have already registered there. It’s about artificial intelligence – and something that has already made other small island states rich.
Anguilla is a small, pretty Caribbean island: white sandy beaches, turquoise sea, coral reefs. Stars like Justin Timberlake, Sandra Bullock and Paris Hilton have already vacationed in the British overseas territory, and Queen Elizabeth II also did the honors during her reign.
The island is not only a popular address for the rich and famous, but also for aspiring entrepreneurs. The reason: The domain ending, a kind of digital identifier on the Internet, is “.ai”. This is basically the acronym for “artificial intelligence” that drives dollar signs into investors’ eyes.
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Start-up founders are fighting over the internet address, which promises a reputation in the global electronic village like a law firm sign on the Champs-Élysées. The number of registrations with the two magic letters doubled last year to 287,000. Elon Musk, who immediately secured the right domain for his new company X.ai, is just one of Anguilla’s many new digital residents.
For the Caribbean state, managing the top-level domain .ai is a lucrative business model – the governor can look forward to additional revenue of $30 million this year. That is more than a tenth of the gross domestic product. Not bad for an island with just 15,000 inhabitants.
.ai, .tk, .vu, .tv
When the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), the authority responsible for allocating domains, assigned the country-specific domain .ai in 1995, the term artificial intelligence was already in the world, but people were talking more about information highways and multimedia. Anguilla was looked up in the atlas; domain name speculators preferred to invest their money in addresses like www.sex.com or www.vodka.com. At the time, no one could have imagined that the domain extension would become a gold mine.
But the internet has redrawn the map. In the far east, a digital empire with the ending .tk is emerging. This is not about Turkey or Turkmenistan, but about Tokelau. The South Sea island, which is home to just 1,500 people, sold its domain to a Dutch internet entrepreneur in the noughties.
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The deal: The entrepreneur is allowed to market the Internet addresses free of charge, in return Tokelau receives a portion of the advertising revenue. There are now over 30 million websites registered in the island state – online business accounts for a sixth of that Gross domestic product of Tokelau out of. And that despite the fact that the Pacific atoll didn’t even have an internet connection until a few years ago.
But that doesn’t detract from the charm of the South Seas. So homepage builders sailed under the “flag of convenience” of Vanuatu because the .vu domain was available for free. The South Sea atoll of Tuvalu also benefits from the network economy – its domain ends in .tv, the global abbreviation for television, which brings license fees of 10 million dollars into its coffers every year. The island state, which is threatened with extinction due to rising sea levels, has already escaped into the Metaverse – and founded a “digital nation” there.
Anguilla in shape and flag
Quelle: picture alliance / Zoonar
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