 Companies are collecting ever-expanding amounts of big data. How can this big data be turned into big value for companies? The square kilometer array will collect 1 million terabyte hard drives of raw data per day. The SKA can be the primary showcase for IBM's new cognitive big data analytics technologies. Data scientists are finding it increasingly difficult to discover hidden value in growing big data. IBM research is improving big data analytics, cloud computing and cognitive computing to extract real value. IBM Watson's capabilities are being expanded to provide powerful cognitive assistance for discovery to data scientists. Could Watson uncover value on its own by discovering hidden structure in big data to report it to the data scientist? Astronomical pulsar sources were a serendipitous discovery through human anomaly flagging, and this is reproduced in the serendipity platform, which will enable automated discovery of valuable hidden patterns in big data. Beyond astronomy, Watson with the serendipity platform could also discover hidden genetic anomalies and turn it into lifesaving pharmaceuticals. Consumer analytics could also be revolutionized by uncovering valuable behavioral patterns previously unnoticed by conventional big data analytics. Cognitive big data analytics technologies such as the serendipity platform can thus help revolutionize the way we transform big data into lasting value.