BENGALURU: IBM Chief Executive Ginni Rometty stressed on India ’s growing importance in the company’s scheme of things and said its commitment to the country remained strong.During a visit to Bengaluru, Rometty also spoke about the potential of IBM's critical cognitive computing system, Watson, and how it had the potential to completely disrupt and transform industries. "I've been to India many times over the years – in fact, this is my second trip in six months. This century, the 21st century, will be the Indian century – and I really believe that," said Rometty in a speech during a 'Watson in India' event in the city on Tuesday.Rometty reached Bengaluru from Chennai, where she announced a string of steps for the company’s operations in the city that were impacted by the December floods."I was in Chennai yesterday … in addition to helping them with technologies that organize around disasters, we've committed to donate cloud, technology and analytics...So, the next time our operations (get impacted), we’ll be able to much better intercept such a situation," she said.Rometty, who flies to Mumbai on Wednesday for IBM's flagship customer event the THINK Forum, said that India would "be the centre of the cognitive shift"."India will not be at the center, it will be the center of this fourth technology shift," said Rometty, referring to the evolving technology landscape globally that is increasingly being shaped by artificially intelligent systems such as Watson."This is the era of cognitive. It is not only disruptive, but also transformative," she said, addressing an auditorium packed with IBM executives, journalists, customers and analysts. "Today Watson has been broken up into a platform of 32 different capabilities, with 50 technologies under it that you can access."Globally, over the past five years, IBM has made a big push to commercialize Watson, which once famously vanquished the human winners of the US game show Jeopardy. Rometty is attempting to turn Watson into a multibillion-dollar business for the company, which has over the past few years witnessed a decline in revenue from traditional technology services businesses.In October last year, Nasscom along with IBM, launched Techstartup.in, a digital platform that will allow startups, investors and venture capitalists to network. Also, as part of its commitment to the global startup community, IBM has pledged to offer up to $120,000 of free IBM cloud credits for local qualified startups to use as they build their businesses on IBM Cloud."We are today mostly a software and services company. But we have to transform – in this transformation, we will emerge as a cognitive solutions and cloud platform company. And I say that because everything we do is part of that strategy," said Rometty.She also highlighted some of the new bets and experiments that IBM is attempting with Watson, including "an ability to help Watson see"."We want deeper engagements here in India and we want to scale expertise," she said before signing off. "India ... what a big part you play in this story for IBM and for the world."