A tiny Caribbean island could reportedly add 10% to its GDP thanks to the AI boom because it's in charge of the sought-after .ai domain name

• Anguilla is a tiny British overseas territory with a population around 16,000.
• But it's also in charge of the .ai domain name.

A tiny Caribbean island could make $30 million from the AI boom thanks to its unique internet domain, Bloomberg reported.

Anguilla is a British overseas territory which only has a population of around 16,000. But it's also been assigned the "ai" country code by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.

That means anyone who wants to get their hands on a URL ending in ".ai" has to get it from the Anguillan government.

The likes of Elon Musk's xAI, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and plenty of startups in the thriving sector already own .ai domains.

Vince Cate, a software developer who's managed the domain on the territory's behalf since the 1990s, told Bloomberg that the total number of .ai registrations has almost doubled in the past year, to a total of 287,432.

He added that "things are very different here" since ChatGPT's public launch last November. And while there was a big peak from December to March, the popularity has since leveled off, per Bloomberg.

Cate told the outlet that the AI boom could still generate $30 million in domain-registration fees for Anguilla this year alone.

According to the most recent UN data, Anguilla had an annual GDP of $288 million in 2021. That means the .ai domain could be worth around 10% of its total domestic product.

Tuvalu — the Pacific island nation with a population of 11,000 — has also benefitted from its own country code. Its ".tv" domain is used by several video-centric websites like Twitch. In 2019, Tuvalu made $7.1 million, about 8% of the government's total revenue, from leasing the domain.

The Anguilla Governor's Office did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.