UK government has recently formed the new UK Cyber Security Council and released an announcement of its plans to publish a new Artificial Intelligence (AI) strategy later in 2021 to boost the country's economy, develop safe, trustworthy and responsible AI and develop skills, talent, and research and development to build resilience. 

Britain has come this far in AI thanks to the foundational steps laid by Alan Turing, the British logician and computer pioneer. He rightly predicted the advent of AI when he said, "This is only a foretaste of what is to come, and only the shadow of what is going to be," when he spoke about his Manchester University project, the electronic calculator, referred to as a “mechanical mind”, in June 1949, in “The Times” of London. He was also the first one to describe an abstract computing machine that had limitless memory and a scanner that moves back and forth through the memory, symbol by symbol, reading what it finds and writing further symbols. This came to be known as the Turing machine; all modern computers and the ones yet to be made are, therefore, in essence, universal Turing machines. 

Today, as Britain lays its sight to become a force to reckon in AI technology, it rightly pays homage to Turing. The Bank of England has released the design of the new £50 polymer note that features Turing; it will release the notes in circulation on 23 June 2021, on what would be his 109th birthday. Keeping in line with Alan Turing's complex work as the famous code-breaker 'who stopped World War 2', the note is the Bank of England's most secure note yet. 

While Turing's British Bombe machine was responsible for accelerating Allied efforts to decipher and read German Naval's Enigma enciphered messages , his pivotal role in the early development of computers is widely overlooked. Turing's prolific career however was cut short after his 1952 conviction for gross indecency when he was arrested for having a homosexual relationship with a 19-year-old Manchester man. Under Victorian-era homophobic laws, he was subjected to chemical castration and later committed suicide at the age of 41, in 1954.

Andrew Bailey, the governor of the Bank of England, while speaking at the announcement of the new £50, said, "He was a leading mathematician, developmental biologist, and a pioneer in the field of computer science. He was also gay, and was treated appallingly as a result. By placing him on our new polymer £50 banknote, we are celebrating his achievements, and the values he symbolises." 

The new note will feature a few of the most important things that represent Turing such as his photo from 1951 that is part of the National Portrait Gallery's collection, the foundational table and the mathematical formula of computer science from Turing's research. It will also feature the Automatic Computing Engine (ACE) Pilot Machine, one of the first electronic stored-program digital computers, the technical drawings of the British Bombe, that broke the Enigma-enciphered messages, Turing's signature and a ticker-tape depicting Turing's birthdate - 23 June - in binary code. 

Sarah John, the Bank's chief cashier whose signature features on the note, said: "This new £50 note completes our set of polymer banknotes. These are much harder to counterfeit, and with its security features the new £50 is part of our most secure series of banknotes yet." The move by the Bank of England is an attempt to see diverse ethnic minorities to be represented on future banknotes, said Mr Bailey. 

"Turing was embraced for his brilliance and persecuted for being gay," said UK's intelligence agency GCHQ' Director Fleming. "His legacy is a reminder of the value of embracing all aspects of diversity, but also the work we still need to do to become truly inclusive."