Following Benedict Cumberbatch’s Academy Award-nominated performance in The Imitation Game, the University of Cambridge is set to honour the life and achievements of codebreaking genius Alan Turing by naming a road after him on the North West Cambridge Development. The university will also play a central role in establishing the cross-university Alan Turing Institute.

The Cambridge alumnus, who studied mathematics at King’s College and graduated with first-class honours in 1934, is among the notable figures whose names are to be used for streets on the North West Cambridge Development, which is due to be completed in 2017.

The 150-hectare development, located on farmland on Madingley Road, is set to include a primary school, 3,000 new homes, a Sainsbury’s supermarket and academic and research facilities. The development is forecasted to cost in excess of £1 billion by its completion. Other figures such as Hughes Hall first head of College Margaret Wileman and archaeologist Miles Burkitt are set to have streets named after them as well.

Renowned for his work in cracking the Nazi Enigma code at Bletchley Park during the Second World War, Turing’s scholarly legacy is also being carried forward by Cambridge academics who are playing a leading role in the foundation of the Alan Turing Institute.

Announced in Chancellor George Osborne’s 2014 Budget, the institute will promote the development and use of computer science, algorithms, advanced mathematics and “big data” (extremely large data sets which are analysed computationally to reveal patterns and trends).

The Centre for Economics and Business Research estimates that the big data marketplace could benefit the UK economy to the tune of £216 billion, creating 58,000 new jobs in the UK by 2017.

Cambridge, alongside other leading British universities such as Oxford, Edinburgh, UCL and Warwick, will contribute funding, academics and research to the British Library-based facility.

The institute will receive primary funding in the form of a £42 million endowment from the British government, with its delivery being coordinated by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

Cambridge academic Professor Paul Alexander commented: “The Alan Turing Institute is an immensely exciting opportunity for the collective expertise of Cambridge and its partners to rise to this very important challenge and make a huge contribution to the future success of the UK economy, our ability to provide health and societal benefits and the ability of British universities to remain at the cutting edge of research”.