Author | Liu Baodan

Editor | Zhou Zhiyu

As a website address, a domain name is like a real-life house number. With the advent of the AI era at an accelerated pace, domain names have also ushered in new development opportunities.

On August 8, at Alibaba Cloud's Wanwang Renewal Conference, Alibaba Cloud announced that the domain name product service has completed a series of AI transformation, launched the first AI big model application for domain names, and launched popular domain name extensions such as “.ai”.

At the same time, Alibaba Cloud also launched a domain-based “Brand Support Program”. Popular domain names dropped by up to 28%, and new users only needed 1 yuan to register a domain name in the first year.

Behind a series of operations, Alibaba Cloud Wanwang aims to provide more professional domain name services to global enterprises and entrepreneurs and seize new opportunities in the AI era through product, model, and price upgrades.

Over the past 30 years, domain names have continued to develop and expand along with technological changes in China's Internet industry.

Domain names have generally gone through three stages of development. The first stage, the Internet boom has just begun, and well-known companies such as Google.com and Alibaba.com are being remembered through domain names; the second stage is the mobile internet era, which gave birth to applications such as Alipay, WeChat, Douyin, and SmartGo; and the third stage is an intelligent era that includes AI.

It can be said that the rise of Wanwang is also a microcosm of the development of China's domain name industry.

Wanwang was founded in 1996. After being acquired by Alibaba, it merged with Alibaba Cloud in 2013, and became an industry leader with the support of Alibaba Cloud's technology and investment. Up to now, the cumulative number of Alibaba Cloud domain names registered over 40 million, and the number of users exceeds 2 million. For every 3 domain names in China, 1 out of every 3 domain names is managed through Alibaba Cloud registration.

Behind every round of technological iteration, there are new opportunities for the development of the Internet industry. At present, the global Internet industry has begun to enter the AI era, which will bring greater market demand to the domain name industry.

Gao Kun, general manager of Alibaba Cloud SME applications, is very optimistic about the future growth of the domain name market. According to her, the potential of the domain name industry lies in the fact that digital transformation has entered the “fast track”, and domain names will usher in new opportunities as an entry point to the Internet; the rise of Guochao brands will rise, demand for national domain names with Chinese characteristics will rise; small and medium-sized enterprises will usher in the “Big Sailing” era, spawning demand for local domain names, and at the same time, large enterprises pursue “one enterprise, one domain.”

More importantly, the explosion of AI technology is expected to lead to rapid growth in applications.

Liu Zixiang, head of Alibaba Cloud's SME application products, believes that domain names have two values. Early users in the industry needed to access web pages through domain name strings. With the development of mobile internet, domain name value changed from brand value to link value.

Liu Zixiang further emphasized, “Most apps and wearables need to interact with back-end servers. The growth of smart devices will bring a large number of access services. To ensure the high availability of a large number of services, a domain name must be needed. This is also the main reason why we are optimistic about future domain name growth.”

Gao Kun believes that with the explosion of smart devices and mass applications, the link role of domain names will become more prominent. At the same time, the deep integration of AI technology with the industry will revolutionize interaction methods, and smart devices based on big models will become standard in the domain name industry.

The launch and renewal of Alibaba Cloud's Wanwang network after many years is undoubtedly a bet on the future development of the domain name industry.

With the AI application of domain names, Alibaba Cloud Wanwang has achieved intelligent naming. Users only need to enter brand information and the industry they belong to, and can generate creative domain names in batches based on a broad generic model. Furthermore, the large model automatically performs semantic analysis and provides usable options through multi-dimensional evaluation and usability screening.

Now, Alibaba Cloud has added more than 40 new domain extensions, including “.ai,” “.car,” and “.me.” There are more than 200 domain extensions that can be registered, and the global supply of tradable domain names exceeds 20 million.

From domain name registration, to website construction, ICP filing, DNS resolution services, and even domain name value evaluation, Alibaba Cloud has newly integrated and upgraded the systematic services for domain-related products.

For example, based on 19 DNS cluster nodes around the world, Alibaba Cloud can provide users with nearby access and minimal latency analysis capabilities, and can withstand up to 100 million DNS queries per second; website security is more guaranteed, and users can enjoy the same DDoS protection capabilities on the cloud as global businesses such as Tmall, Taobao, and Ant.

Zhang Liang, vice president of Alibaba Cloud's SME division, said at the conference, “Wanwang Renewal is Alibaba Cloud's latest practice in the domain name field based on 'cloud computing+AI' technology. Alibaba Cloud will continue to iterate domain name services through new technology to help Chinese enterprises establish brand reputation in the global market.”

Alibaba Cloud's global adventure has added another major weapon.