IBM's Watson just got its own business division and an office in New York City's Astor Place. The Watson Business Group will have 2,500 employees, majority of which will be comprised of researchers and programmers.

The group, will also offer supercomputing services to local startups and run workshops on a variety of topics. There are three new main services —Discovery Advisor, Analytics, and Explorer—and they are focused on finally getting Watson to make IBM some money.

Watson has come a long way after proving itself. It schooled Jeopardy champions, it worked in the healthcare industry for a while, and today its just the size of three pizza boxes stacked up. Watson also got 24 times faster and has seen a 2,400 percent improvement in performance.

"We believe a major shift is underway [in computing]," IBM chief executive Virginia M. Rometty said on Thursday. "Watson does more than find the needle in the haystack. It understands the haystack. It understands context."

How else will Watson grow? We're guessing this is really just the beginning.

[NYT, Marketwatch]