I think.. both. Distributed computing (Hadoop) was why a lot of data got collected and made available(ish).
GPU's are the engines that made CNN's (in particular) tractable, and opened up a bunch of applications for many companies, and opened up a reasonable route to results for a generation of researchers.
GPU's are the engines that made CNN's (in particular) tractable, and opened up a bunch of applications for many companies, and opened up a reasonable route to results for a generation of researchers.