Tommy Flowers: nothing like the machine he proposed had ever been contemplated. Tommy Flowers: nothing like the machine he proposed had ever been contemplated. Move over, Alan Turing: meet the working-class hero of Bletchley Park you didn't see in the movies The Oxbridge-educated boffin is feted as the codebreaking genius who helped Britain win the war. But should a little-known Post Office engineer named Tommy Flowers be seen as the real father of computing? T his is a story you know, right? It's early in the war and western Europe has fallen. Only the Channel stands between Britain and the fascist yoke; only Atlantic shipping lanes offer hope of the population continuing to be fed, clothed and armed. But hunting "wolf packs" of Nazi U-boats pick off merchant shipping at will, coordinated by radio instructions the Brits can intercept but can't read, thanks to the fiendish Enigma encryption machine.

"GCHQ's history at Bletchley Park is represented in this year's Christmas card as a reminder of the role this historic place has played in our wartime efforts but also as home to this year's AI Safety Summit," agency director Ms Keast-Butler said.

Rishi Sunak's global summit on the safety of artificial intelligence this autumn will be hosted at Bletchley Park, the home of top-secret codebreakers during the second world war. The first major gathering on the technology will bring together governments, leading AI firms and experts to discuss how its risks can be mitigated through internationally coordinated action. Sunak announced the summit on a trip to Washington in June amid fears that the technology's rapid advancement could spin out of control and concerns that existing safeguards would soon be outdated. Safety concerns are mounting after breakthroughs in generative AI, which can produce convincing text, images and even voice on command, with tech executives such as Elon Musk among those expressing alarm. In recent months the prime minister has changed his tone on the technology.

How much do you know about Alan Turing, who was portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch in the 2014 film The Imitation Game? October 1931 Turing takes up a mathematics scholarship at King's College Cambridge, earning a first-class degree. March 1940 The first Bombe machine, designed by Turing, arrives at Bletchley. The coroner's verdict is that he had taken his own life The founding father of computing played a vital role in breaking German codes during the Second World War. In September 1939, just as the Second World War was declared, a young man arrived to stay at the Crown Inn in the hamlet of Shenley Brook End, Buckinghamshire.

Bletchley Park, the site of secret code-deciphering projects during World War Two, could become the centre for a new generation of codemakers and codebreakers. There are plans for a training college to teach cybersecurity skills to 16-19 year olds at the Buckinghamshire site. Former Home Secretary Lord Reid said it had become vital to build up the "talent pool" for cyber-defence. The college in a wartime building at Bletchley is intended to open in 2018. The project, developed by a not-for-profit group from the cybersecurity industry, is planning a National College of Cyber Security, which would open in autumn 2018.