Worlds First AI Safety Summit to be hosted at Bletchley Park Historic UK codebreaking base in November

Governments, AI companies, and expert researchers from around the world will gather in the UK for crucial talks on the risks of frontier AI technology and how to mitigate them through internationally coordinated action.

The UK Government has announced that the first major global summit on AI safety, is going to be held at Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire, the home of WWII Codebreakers.

The two-day event will focus on frontier AI models are those that are at the cutting edge of development. They have the potential to power economic growth, drive scientific progress, and benefit society in many ways. However, they also pose potential safety risks if not developed responsibly through internationally coordinated action.

The goal is to agree a set of rapid, targeted measures that can be implemented by countries around the world.

To be hosted at Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire on the 1st and 2nd November, a significant location in the history of computer science development and once the home of British Enigma codebreaking.

The summit is seen as an important opportunity to build international consensus on AI safety. It is hoped that the summit will help to ensure that AI is developed and used safely for the benefit of all.

Preparations for the summit are already in full flow, the government has appointed Matt Clifford and Jonathan Black as its representatives for the summit. Clifford is the co-founder of the ScaleUp Institute, and Black is a former director of the Alan Turing Institute.

Together they’ll spearhead talks and negotiations, as they rally leading AI nations and experts over the next three months to ensure the summit provides a platform for countries to work together on further developing a shared approach to agree the safety measures needed to mitigate the risks of AI. 

Iain Standen, CEO of the Bletchley Park Trust, said: 

“Bletchley Park Trust is immensely privileged to have been chosen as the venue for the first major international summit on AI safety this November, and we look forward to welcoming the world to our historic site.  

“It is fitting that the very spot where leading minds harnessed emerging technologies to influence the successful outcome of World War Two will, once again, be the crucible for international co-ordinated action.  

“We are incredibly excited to be providing the stage for discussions on global safety standards, which will help everyone manage and monitor the risks of artificial intelligence”. 

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said:

“The UK has long been home to the transformative technologies of the future, so there is no better place to host the first ever global AI safety summit than at Bletchley Park this November.

“To fully embrace the extraordinary opportunities of artificial intelligence, we must grip and tackle the risks to ensure it develops safely in the years ahead.

“With the combined strength of our international partners, thriving AI industry and expert academic community, we can secure the rapid international action we need for the safe and responsible development of AI around the world.”

Technology Secretary Michelle Donelan said:  

“International collaboration is the cornerstone of our approach to AI regulation, and we want the summit to result in leading nations and experts agreeing on a shared approach to its safe use.  

“The UK is consistently recognised as a world leader in AI and we are well placed to lead these discussions. The location of Bletchley Park as the backdrop will reaffirm our historic leadership in overseeing the development of new technologies.  

“AI is already improving lives from new innovations in healthcare to supporting efforts to tackle climate change, and November’s summit will make sure we can all realise the technology’s huge benefits safely and securely for decades to come”. 

The summit will also build on ongoing work at international forums including the OECD, Global Partnership on AI, Council of Europe, and the UN and standards-development organisations, as well as the recently agreed G7 Hiroshima AI Process. 

The UK boasts strong credentials as a world leader in AI. The technology employs over 50,000 people, directly supports one of the Prime Minister’s five priorities by contributing £3.7 billion to the economy, and is the birthplace of leading AI companies such as Google DeepMind. It has also invested more on AI safety research than any other nation, backing the creation of the Foundation Model Taskforce with an initial £100 million.