Earlier this year, a supercomputer named Watson gained notice when he competed against "Jeopardy!" superstars Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter—and won. Now, Watson's smarts have landed him a job in health care.

Wellpoint, one of the country's largest plan providers with around 34 million subscribers, announced today it's tapping IBM's Watson technology to improve patient care. Watson, named after IBM founder Thomas Watson, is a computing system built by a team of IBM scientists that rivals a human's ability to answer questions posed in natural language with speed, accuracy and confidence.

And the Wellpoint job won't be such an elementary gig for dear Watson—he'll be used to help diagnose and treat patients.

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