Bletchley Park Opens “The Age of AI” Exhibition

MILTON KEYNES, UK—Codebreaking’s spiritual home has gone full-futurist. From 6 February 2025 visitors stepping through the gates of Bletchley Park can explore “The Age of AI,” a hands-on exhibition tracing artificial intelligence from wartime roots to tomorrow’s headlines.

Historic Codebreaking HQ Shifts Focus to Tomorrow’s Tech

The same mansion where Alan Turing cracked the Enigma now showcases deep-learning chatbots, smart-speaker demos and interactive displays on machine vision. The venue’s AI credentials were cemented back in November 2023 when the first AI Safety Summit gathered 28 nations under its roof, producing the “Bletchley Declaration” on frontier-model risks.

What Visitors Will See

Ever asked your smart speaker how it knows what you want? One gallery breaks down that process step by step. Another projects climate-model animations onto a wrap-around screen, showing how AI is already spotting illegal deforestation in satellite feeds. Pop-culture buffs get a nostalgic corner featuring HAL 9000, Ava from Ex Machina and other screen icons that shaped public imagination. An audio-description track is free to download, and a short film captures expert forecasts on where generative AI might head next.

Spotlight on the Pioneers

Original notebooks and wartime photographs honour Alan Turing, Donald Michie and Irving “Jack” Good, three Bletchley veterans whose post-war research sketched the very idea of machine intelligence.

Their early papers sit alongside contemporary research artefacts such as graphene-based neuromorphic chips and the UK’s latest AI safety benchmarks, highlighting an unbroken thread from cipher machines to large language models.

Runs Through 2026—Plan Your Trip

“The Age of AI” is included in the standard Bletchley Park ticket and is scheduled to run until at least the end of 2026, with an option to extend into 2027. Doors open daily from 09:30. Advance booking is strongly advised, especially for weekend slots. The site sits a five-minute walk from Bletchley rail station; drivers should follow signs to MK3 6EB.

Why It Matters

Britain’s codebreakers once helped end a world war. Eighty years later the same bricks are sparking public debate on algorithms that diagnose cancer, write screenplay drafts, and—possibly—steer self-driving tanks. The message is clear: history isn’t a museum piece; it’s the launchpad for the next wave.