A £42m Alan Turing Institute is to be founded to ensure that Britain leads the way in big data and algorithm research, George Osborne announced.
Drawing on the name of the famous British mathematician who led codebreaking work during the second world war at Bletchley Park, the institute is intended to help British companies by bringing together expertise and experience in tackling problems requiring huge computational power.
The tender to house the institute will be produced this year. It may be a brand-new facility or use existing space in a university, a Treasury spokesman said. Its funding will come from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, and its chief will report to the science minister, David Willetts. No staffing numbers or chief executive have been announced.
"The intention is for the work to benefit British companies to have an advantage in big data," the spokesman said.
Turing was a pivotal figure in mathematics and computing. His codebreaking work led to the cracking of the German "Enigma" codes, which used highly complex encryption, using an electromechanical system. He later formed a number of theories that underpin modern computing, and formalised the idea of algorithms – sequences of instructions – for a computer.
His codebreaking work is reckoned to have saved hundreds or even thousands of lives.
Osborne's announcement marks further official rehabilitation of a scientist who many see as having been treated badly by the British government after his work during the war. Turing, who was gay, was convicted of indecency in March 1952, and lost his security clearance with GCHQ, the successor to Bletchley Park. He killed himself in June 1954. But he was only given an official pardon by the UK government in December 2013 after a series of public campaigns.
Turing's fame has long been recognised among computer scientists and mathematicians. There is already a Turing Institute at Glasgow University, and an Alan Turing Institute in the Netherlands, as well as an Alan Turing building at the Manchester Institute for Mathematical Sciences.
Source: The Guardian
