Processing power is probably the main factor here, but I feel like another significant factor is that there is more information available to more people with a

Processing power is probably the main factor here, but I feel like another significant factor is that there is more information available to more people with a greater number of ideas all able to work together/share these ideas with greater speed. As more eyes landed on the topic, it started becoming less of a scifi/cyberpunk hypothetical and more something that legitimate educational orgs developed masters' degrees for. It's snowballing.