[3][4][5] The award is named after Alan Turing, who was a British mathematician and reader in mathematics at the University of Manchester.

Turing is often credited as being the founder of theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence,[6] and a key contributor to the Allied cryptanalysis of the Enigma cipher during World War II.

[7] From 2007 to 2013, the award was accompanied by a prize of US$250,000, with financial support provided by Intel and Google.

[11] Only three women have been awarded the prize: Frances Allen (in 2006),[12] Barbara Liskov (in 2008),[13] and Shafi Goldwasser (in 2012).

In addition, he formulated and strongly advanced full abstraction, the study of the relationship between operational and denotational semantics.