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The New Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLD) Program: 2026 Round offers organizations the opportunity to fortify security, enhance brand identity, build community, and gain a competitive edge in an evolving digital landscape.
News Summary:
- ICANN is now accepting applications for its New gTLD Program: 2026 Round through 12 August, providing businesses, communities, governments, and other organizations the opportunity to operate their own global presence online as part of their digital strategy.
- Operating a gTLD creates an opportunity to have control and flexibility over your own digital presence, increased security against cyber threats, and a competitive edge. In a recent study, 92 percent of marketers recognized the opportunities for differentiation, enhanced trust, and improved search engine optimization.
- The 2026 Round creates an opportunity to expand the number of languages available for Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) by accepting top-level domain (TLD) applications in 27 different scripts, representing hundreds of languages such as Arabic, Chinese, Devanagari, and Thai.
LOS ANGELES, April 30, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the nonprofit organization that coordinates the Internet's Domain Name System (DNS), today announced that its New gTLD Program: 2026 Round application window is now open. Generic top-level domains, or gTLDs, are the part of a web address after the last dot. For the first time in over a decade businesses, communities, governments, and other organizations have the opportunity to operate unique digital assets, such as .brand, .city, or .industry, for the use of their business, customers, or constituents.
A Strategic Tool for the Digital Era
A gTLD is a global digital identifier that can anchor businesses in the digital arena, providing control over the left and right of the dot. The previous application round in 2012 resulted in the introduction of more than 1,200 new gTLDs, including those for brands like .microsoft and .sky, geographic locations such as .africa and .berlin, and general terms like .bank and .eco. New gTLDs have demonstrated their benefits in building brand trust, creating vibrant local digital ecosystems, and providing more intuitive navigation for users.
Key Benefits of Operating a gTLD
A gTLD is a unique digital home that provides:
- Control and Flexibility: Define your own digital ecosystem by determining who can register under your domain name.
- Security: Strengthen online transactions and build robust defenses against cyber threats, protecting both your brand and your customers.
- Competitive Edge: Marketers overwhelmingly agree, with 92 percent recognizing gTLD benefits like differentiation, enhanced trust, and improved SEO.
"gTLDs are unique digital tools that can be used in meaningful and innovative ways to help achieve long-term goals," said Kurtis Lindqvist, President and CEO, ICANN. "Whether building a brand for a company, spotlighting a geographic region or city, strengthening a community, or launching a business to offer domain names under a new registry, a new gTLD can be an innovative tool for commerce, security, and communication."
The 2026 Round will expand the number of languages available for Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) by accepting gTLD applications in 27 different scripts, representing hundreds of languages such as Arabic, Chinese, Devanagari, and Thai. This expansion will make the Internet more accessible and user-friendly for billions of people who use non-Latin-based scripts.
How To Apply
The application submission window will close on 12 August 2026. Applicants must submit their applications through the online TLD Application Management System (TAMS) here.
Applicant Resources
The Applicant Guidebook is the authoritative roadmap for any entity interested in applying for a gTLD. It includes the application questions, requirements, and processes to lead applicants through the submission and evaluation processes.
Applicants are strongly advised to carefully review the TAMS resources prior to submitting an application. These resources include a system User Guide, demonstration videos, and other helpful tools, all available here. Additional resources, including Frequently Asked Questions, topic overviews, webinar recordings, and more are available on the 2026 Round Resources webpage.
About ICANN
ICANN's mission is to help ensure a stable, secure, and unified global Internet. To reach another person on the Internet, you need to type an address – a name or a number – into your computer or other device. That address must be unique so computers know where to find each other. ICANN helps coordinate and support these unique identifiers across the world. ICANN was formed in 1998 as a nonprofit public benefit corporation with a community of participants from all over the world.
The New Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLD) Program: 2026 Round offers organizations the opportunity to fortify security, enhance brand identity, build community, and gain a competitive edge in an evolving digital landscape.
News Summary:
- ICANN is now accepting applications for its New gTLD Program: 2026 Round through 12 August, providing businesses, communities, governments, and other organizations the opportunity to operate their own global presence online as part of their digital strategy.
- Operating a gTLD creates an opportunity to have control and flexibility over your own digital presence, increased security against cyber threats, and a competitive edge. In a recent study, 92 percent of marketers recognized the opportunities for differentiation, enhanced trust, and improved search engine optimization.
- The 2026 Round creates an opportunity to expand the number of languages available for Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) by accepting top-level domain (TLD) applications in 27 different scripts, representing hundreds of languages such as Arabic, Chinese, Devanagari, and Thai.
LOS ANGELES, April 30, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the nonprofit organization that coordinates the Internet's Domain Name System (DNS), today announced that its New gTLD Program: 2026 Round application window is now open. Generic top-level domains, or gTLDs, are the part of a web address after the last dot. For the first time in over a decade businesses, communities, governments, and other organizations have the opportunity to operate unique digital assets, such as .brand, .city, or .industry, for the use of their business, customers, or constituents.
A Strategic Tool for the Digital Era
A gTLD is a global digital identifier that can anchor businesses in the digital arena, providing control over the left and right of the dot. The previous application round in 2012 resulted in the introduction of more than 1,200 new gTLDs, including those for brands like .microsoft and .sky, geographic locations such as .africa and .berlin, and general terms like .bank and .eco. New gTLDs have demonstrated their benefits in building brand trust, creating vibrant local digital ecosystems, and providing more intuitive navigation for users.
Key Benefits of Operating a gTLD
A gTLD is a unique digital home that provides:
- Control and Flexibility: Define your own digital ecosystem by determining who can register under your domain name.
- Security: Strengthen online transactions and build robust defenses against cyber threats, protecting both your brand and your customers.
- Competitive Edge: Marketers overwhelmingly agree, with 92 percent recognizing gTLD benefits like differentiation, enhanced trust, and improved SEO.
"gTLDs are unique digital tools that can be used in meaningful and innovative ways to help achieve long-term goals," said Kurtis Lindqvist, President and CEO, ICANN. "Whether building a brand for a company, spotlighting a geographic region or city, strengthening a community, or launching a business to offer domain names under a new registry, a new gTLD can be an innovative tool for commerce, security, and communication."
The 2026 Round will expand the number of languages available for Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) by accepting gTLD applications in 27 different scripts, representing hundreds of languages such as Arabic, Chinese, Devanagari, and Thai. This expansion will make the Internet more accessible and user-friendly for billions of people who use non-Latin-based scripts.
How To Apply
The application submission window will close on 12 August 2026. Applicants must submit their applications through the online TLD Application Management System (TAMS) here.
Applicant Resources
The Applicant Guidebook is the authoritative roadmap for any entity interested in applying for a gTLD. It includes the application questions, requirements, and processes to lead applicants through the submission and evaluation processes.
Applicants are strongly advised to carefully review the TAMS resources prior to submitting an application. These resources include a system User Guide, demonstration videos, and other helpful tools, all available here. Additional resources, including Frequently Asked Questions, topic overviews, webinar recordings, and more are available on the 2026 Round Resources webpage.
About ICANN
ICANN's mission is to help ensure a stable, secure, and unified global Internet. To reach another person on the Internet, you need to type an address – a name or a number – into your computer or other device. That address must be unique so computers know where to find each other. ICANN helps coordinate and support these unique identifiers across the world. ICANN was formed in 1998 as a nonprofit public benefit corporation with a community of participants from all over the world.
** This press release is distributed by PR Newswire through automated distribution system, for which the client assumes full responsibility. **
ICANN Opens Application Window for New Generic Top-Level Domains
- IBM and Dallara are collaborating on the development of new physics-based AI foundation models.
- One early model was trained on Dallara's proprietary and validated aerodynamic data of a high-performance vehicle.
- Early results show the potential to reduce aerodynamics simulation time from many hours to few minutes and help engineers explore more design options earlier in vehicle development.
- The companies are starting to explore how to integrate quantum computing in the design workflow and further boost simulation fidelity for complex aerodynamic problems.
PARMA, Italy and NEW YORK, April 30, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) and the Dallara Group, a world-leading racing and high-performance vehicle manufacturer, today announced a collaboration to advance vehicle design and optimization using AI and explore the use of quantum computing. The work combines Dallara's expertise in high-performance vehicle engineering with IBM's leadership in AI for physics and quantum computing to investigate how to accelerate aerodynamic design and open a path to even more advanced simulation workflows.
For more than 50 years, Dallara has designed and supplied high-performance vehicles for some of the world's top racing series, including IndyCar — where track speeds can average more than 230 mph (370 km/h) — as well as Formula 2, Formula 3, Super Formula, and Indy NXT, with additional work in top-tier series such as Formula E, WEC, and IMSA. This breadth of racing programs provides a unique ability to validate simulation results against real-world vehicle performance. Dallara also applies its engineering to high-performance road vehicles and aerospace. These and other distinctive, innovation-driven features of the company were key in IBM choosing to collaborate with Dallara.
As part of the project, IBM has been developing domain-specific foundation models in close coordination with Dallara. The models leverage not only Dallara's high-fidelity aerodynamic simulation data but also the company's deep technical expertise. In a future step, the teams aim to integrate validated measurements of real vehicles in wind tunnels and on the track, but the use of high-quality simulation data alone is already producing compelling early results.
Engineers rely heavily on computational fluid dynamics (CFD), to predict aerodynamic forces and optimize how vehicles perform across components such as body geometry, underfloor, wings, and wheels. These simulations are powerful but computationally expensive. Even relatively narrow analyses may take a couple of hours or more, while full race car development workflows may take weeks or months as engineers iterate through geometry changes, operating conditions, and performance tradeoffs.
IBM and Dallara are using AI to speed up those workflows without replacing the underlying physics. In one early example, which focused on the geometry of a conceptual Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2)-like race car, the two companies jointly compared CFD analyses of multiple configurations of the rear diffuser — a part located in the rear underfloor that helps generate efficient downforce and thus grip — with results from the new physics-based AI method.
The traditional approach took a few hours to calculate all the configurations. Meanwhile, the AI model completed the same evaluations in about 10 seconds, identifying the same optimal design with roughly the same error margins as CFD. Applied to a typical complete set of hundreds of geometry configurations, such a speedup could cut days of simulation time down to minutes.
These and other preliminary results suggest Dallara engineers can evaluate more vehicle configurations in a fraction of time to move faster in early design phases, helping focus their most expensive computational resources on deep-dive optimization of race car design and development.
In parallel, IBM and Dallara are starting to explore how quantum and hybrid quantum-classical approaches could further enhance race car design workflows. By combining Dallara's expertise in high-fidelity vehicle engineering and CFD-driven design with IBM's leadership in quantum computing and AI, the collaboration will evaluate where these methods can complement traditional simulation workflows in the near-term while identifying longer-term opportunities for practical use in automotive and motorsport design.
"Racing has taught Dallara that there are two possible outcomes: you either win or are forced to learn. IBM's close collaboration on this innovative project is a testament of Dallara's willingness to continuously push its boundaries and never stop learning," said Andrea Pontremoli, Dallara CEO.
"Some of the hardest engineering challenges come down to accurately simulating the physical world," said Alessandro Curioni, IBM Fellow and VP, Algorithms and Applications, IBM Research. "With Dallara, IBM is applying AI to speed up aerodynamic design today while advancing quantum computing in parallel to push simulation farther. Together, these technologies can help engineers move faster, explore more possibilities, and ultimately design better-performing vehicles."
Advancing aerodynamic design with AI
Designing a high-performance vehicle means balancing downforce, drag, stability, and responsiveness across conditions that can change from race to race. Because some parts are designed with exacting precision, even small design changes can lead to surprisingly large impacts on performance, and the best aerodynamic solution is not always obvious.
The AI models are being designed to help predict aerodynamic behaviors directly from geometry and related engineering inputs. As the collaboration progresses, IBM and Dallara plan to expand the AI models across a wider range of conditions, such as different maneuvers or overtaking scenarios, apply them to design new vehicles and develop tools that enable faster exploration of new aerodynamic configurations, before investing in intensive full-vehicle simulations.
"High-performance vehicles are an ideal proving ground for neural surrogate models, but the potential impact goes well beyond the racetrack," said Fabrizio Arbucci, Dallara CIO. "More efficient designs could benefit all transport categories, from passenger vehicles to aircraft, and even other industries at the mercy of aerodynamics. Even a one to two percent reduction in drag across passenger vehicles could add up to meaningful fuel-efficiency gains at scale."
Initial results of the collaboration are detailed in a preprint study published at arXiv on April 20, 2026. This work builds upon a new AI model developed by IBM, called Gauge-Invariant Spectral Transformers (GIST), which was described in a March 17th preprint study. IBM and Dallara presented these and other advances in applying AI to complex physical systems on April 26, 2026, at the International Conference on Learning Representations in Rio de Janeiro.
About IBM
IBM is a leading provider of global hybrid cloud and AI, and consulting expertise. IBM helps clients in more than 175 countries capitalize on insights from their data, streamline business processes, reduce costs and gain the competitive edge in their industries. Thousands of governments and corporate entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial services, telecommunications and healthcare rely on IBM's hybrid cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to affect their digital transformations quickly, efficiently and securely. IBM's breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing, industry-specific cloud solutions and consulting deliver open and flexible options to our clients. All of this is backed by IBM's long-standing commitment to trust, transparency, responsibility, inclusivity and service. Visit www.ibm.com for more information.
About The Dallara Group
Founded in 1972 by Giampaolo Dallara, Dallara is a world-leading manufacturer specializing in the design, engineering, and production of racing cars for top-tier motorsports. The firm has expanded globally from Italy's Motor Valley with a US Dallara Experience Hub in Speedway, Indiana. Dallara is the sole builder of racing cars for the IndyCar, Indy NXT, Formula 2, Formula 3 and Super Formula Championships, it also supplies Cadillac and BMW in both the WEC and IMSA championships. The expertise acquired in racing is regularly used both in the automotive world through consultancies and production services, with also Dallara branded products like the Dallara Stradale and DallaraEXP and more recently in aerospace. Visit www.dallara.it for more information.
Media Contacts
IBM Research
Dave Mosher
IBM Research Communications
dave.mosher@ibm.com
Ashley Peterson
IBM Research Communications
ashley.peterson@ibm.com
Dallara
Andrea Vecchi
Dallara Marketing & Communications Director
a.vecchi@dallara.it
PARMA, Italy and NEW YORK, April 30, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) and the Dallara Group, a world-leading racing and high-performance vehicle manufacturer, today announced a collaboration to advance vehicle design and optimization using AI and explore the use of quantum computing. The work combines Dallara's expertise in high-performance vehicle engineering with IBM's leadership in AI for physics and quantum computing to investigate how to accelerate aerodynamic design and open a path to even more advanced simulation workflows.
For more than 50 years, Dallara has designed and supplied high-performance vehicles for some of the world's top racing series, including IndyCar — where track speeds can average more than 230 mph (370 km/h) — as well as Formula 2, Formula 3, Super Formula, and Indy NXT, with additional work in top-tier series such as Formula E, WEC, and IMSA. This breadth of racing programs provides a unique ability to validate simulation results against real-world vehicle performance. Dallara also applies its engineering to high-performance road vehicles and aerospace. These and other distinctive, innovation-driven features of the company were key in IBM choosing to collaborate with Dallara.
As part of the project, IBM has been developing domain-specific foundation models in close coordination with Dallara. The models leverage not only Dallara's high-fidelity aerodynamic simulation data but also the company's deep technical expertise. In a future step, the teams aim to integrate validated measurements of real vehicles in wind tunnels and on the track, but the use of high-quality simulation data alone is already producing compelling early results.
Engineers rely heavily on computational fluid dynamics (CFD), to predict aerodynamic forces and optimize how vehicles perform across components such as body geometry, underfloor, wings, and wheels. These simulations are powerful but computationally expensive. Even relatively narrow analyses may take a couple of hours or more, while full race car development workflows may take weeks or months as engineers iterate through geometry changes, operating conditions, and performance tradeoffs.
IBM and Dallara are using AI to speed up those workflows without replacing the underlying physics. In one early example, which focused on the geometry of a conceptual Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2)-like race car, the two companies jointly compared CFD analyses of multiple configurations of the rear diffuser — a part located in the rear underfloor that helps generate efficient downforce and thus grip — with results from the new physics-based AI method.
The traditional approach took a few hours to calculate all the configurations. Meanwhile, the AI model completed the same evaluations in about 10 seconds, identifying the same optimal design with roughly the same error margins as CFD. Applied to a typical complete set of hundreds of geometry configurations, such a speedup could cut days of simulation time down to minutes.
These and other preliminary results suggest Dallara engineers can evaluate more vehicle configurations in a fraction of time to move faster in early design phases, helping focus their most expensive computational resources on deep-dive optimization of race car design and development.
In parallel, IBM and Dallara are starting to explore how quantum and hybrid quantum-classical approaches could further enhance race car design workflows. By combining Dallara's expertise in high-fidelity vehicle engineering and CFD-driven design with IBM's leadership in quantum computing and AI, the collaboration will evaluate where these methods can complement traditional simulation workflows in the near-term while identifying longer-term opportunities for practical use in automotive and motorsport design.
"Racing has taught Dallara that there are two possible outcomes: you either win or are forced to learn. IBM's close collaboration on this innovative project is a testament of Dallara's willingness to continuously push its boundaries and never stop learning," said Andrea Pontremoli, Dallara CEO.
"Some of the hardest engineering challenges come down to accurately simulating the physical world," said Alessandro Curioni, IBM Fellow and VP, Algorithms and Applications, IBM Research. "With Dallara, IBM is applying AI to speed up aerodynamic design today while advancing quantum computing in parallel to push simulation farther. Together, these technologies can help engineers move faster, explore more possibilities, and ultimately design better-performing vehicles."
Advancing aerodynamic design with AI
Designing a high-performance vehicle means balancing downforce, drag, stability, and responsiveness across conditions that can change from race to race. Because some parts are designed with exacting precision, even small design changes can lead to surprisingly large impacts on performance, and the best aerodynamic solution is not always obvious.
The AI models are being designed to help predict aerodynamic behaviors directly from geometry and related engineering inputs. As the collaboration progresses, IBM and Dallara plan to expand the AI models across a wider range of conditions, such as different maneuvers or overtaking scenarios, apply them to design new vehicles and develop tools that enable faster exploration of new aerodynamic configurations, before investing in intensive full-vehicle simulations.
"High-performance vehicles are an ideal proving ground for neural surrogate models, but the potential impact goes well beyond the racetrack," said Fabrizio Arbucci, Dallara CIO. "More efficient designs could benefit all transport categories, from passenger vehicles to aircraft, and even other industries at the mercy of aerodynamics. Even a one to two percent reduction in drag across passenger vehicles could add up to meaningful fuel-efficiency gains at scale."
Initial results of the collaboration are detailed in a preprint study published at arXiv on April 20, 2026. This work builds upon a new AI model developed by IBM, called Gauge-Invariant Spectral Transformers (GIST), which was described in a March 17th preprint study. IBM and Dallara presented these and other advances in applying AI to complex physical systems on April 26, 2026, at the International Conference on Learning Representations in Rio de Janeiro.
About IBM
IBM is a leading provider of global hybrid cloud and AI, and consulting expertise. IBM helps clients in more than 175 countries capitalize on insights from their data, streamline business processes, reduce costs and gain the competitive edge in their industries. Thousands of governments and corporate entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial services, telecommunications and healthcare rely on IBM's hybrid cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to affect their digital transformations quickly, efficiently and securely. IBM's breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing, industry-specific cloud solutions and consulting deliver open and flexible options to our clients. All of this is backed by IBM's long-standing commitment to trust, transparency, responsibility, inclusivity and service. Visit www.ibm.com for more information.
About The Dallara Group
Founded in 1972 by Giampaolo Dallara, Dallara is a world-leading manufacturer specializing in the design, engineering, and production of racing cars for top-tier motorsports. The firm has expanded globally from Italy's Motor Valley with a US Dallara Experience Hub in Speedway, Indiana. Dallara is the sole builder of racing cars for the IndyCar, Indy NXT, Formula 2, Formula 3 and Super Formula Championships, it also supplies Cadillac and BMW in both the WEC and IMSA championships. The expertise acquired in racing is regularly used both in the automotive world through consultancies and production services, with also Dallara branded products like the Dallara Stradale and DallaraEXP and more recently in aerospace. Visit www.dallara.it for more information.
Media Contacts
IBM Research
Dave Mosher
IBM Research Communications
dave.mosher@ibm.com
Ashley Peterson
IBM Research Communications
ashley.peterson@ibm.com
Dallara
Andrea Vecchi
Dallara Marketing & Communications Director
a.vecchi@dallara.it
** This press release is distributed by PR Newswire through automated distribution system, for which the client assumes full responsibility. **
IBM and Dallara to Advance AI and Quantum-Powered Design for High-Performance Vehicles
IBM and Dallara to Advance AI and Quantum-Powered Design for High-Performance Vehicles
