Hurricane knocked out power in Anguilla.
Some domain name transactions for .AI domain names, which have become popular for artificial intelligence companies, are not working due to Hurricane Irma.
The hurricane hit the island nation of Anguilla, which is actually what .AI stands for. Thanks to the distributed nature of domain servers, .ai domains are still resolving. But transactions that involve interfacing with the registry (e.g new registrations and transfers) are currently not functioning.
Whois.ai, the registry’s official website, is also offline.
I reached out to Vincent Cate who manages the .AI domain in Anguilla and received what I believe is an autoresponder. It states:
Hurricane Irma took out the power grid on the island. My office is in a 32 unit building and the landlord will turn on the generator 8 am Monday. He wants to conserve fuel till he can secure more fuel and so may only run weekdays from 8 am to 5 pm Anguilla time for awhile.
It’s like $30 a month to run a VPS in well-known and reliable data centers where a hurricane will not affect the zone. Why a registry isn’t doing that, at a minimum, is mind blowing – especially with the high price that they charge.
I think the problem is that his personal workspace is in an actual office. He goes through all .AI registrations manually (approval, payment processing,e tc.), when the domains are provisioned, of course they are running through the DNS system, so an individual office is not the concern. However while processing payment, etc. he definately needs that office, and if there’s no power to turn his computer on, a VPS isn’t going to help.
Here’s an interesting video he posted showing his door flying off during the hurricane: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=O5QLRpdbi50
Hopefully they and the rest of the Caribbean recovers quickly from this.
My DNS just propagated! Looks like Anguilla is back!