History of AI at Edinburgh

Artificial Intelligence research at Edinburgh can trace its origins to a small research group established in 1963 by Donald Michie, who had been a member of the code-breaking group that included Alan Turing at Bletchley Park.

A History of AI at Edinburgh has been provided by Jim Howe who headed the Department of Artificial Intelligence at Edinburgh for many years. There is also a timeline of Computing and Artificial Intelligence work at Edinburgh in the University of Edinburgh’s Edit Magazine.

Over the years, there have been a number of different organisational structures and department names for the AI groups:

Experimental Programming Unit (EPU), 1963-1966
Department of Machine Intelligence and Perception (DMIP), 1966-1970
Department of Machine Intelligence, 1970-1973
School of Artificial Intelligence, 1973-1974 + Machine Intelligence Research Unit (MIRU), 1973-1977
Department of Artificial Intelligence (DAI), 1974-1998 + Artificial Intelligence Applications Institute (AIAI), 1984-2019
In 1998, the University joined together three departments: Artificial Intelligence, Cognitive Science and Computer Science, as well as a number of research institutes including AIAI and the Human Communication Research Centre, to form the School of Informatics.
Institute for Representation and Reasoning (IRR), School of Informatics, 1998-2001
Centre for Intelligent Systems and their Applications (CISA), School of Informatics, 2001-2019
Artificial Intelligence and its Applications Institute (AIAI), School of Informatics, 2019-current

Several other departments and schools at the University of Edinburgh as well as other research institutes in the School of Informatics work on a range of topics within the field of Artificial Intelligence.

Over five decades of world-leading research, teaching and innovative applications in AI at Edinburgh

History of AI at Edinburgh

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