Processing Seismic Data takes a ton of power, There are techniques that are well known that we still can't use due to the lack of computer power. The last big advance was RTM(Reverse Time Migration). This was first done on 2D Data in the 80's, But didn't become reasonable to do on 3D's until about 2008-'09. This improvement in imaging is one of the drivers is subsalt exploration.
The next big step is FWI (Full Waveform Inversion) We still don't have enough power to run this mainstream yet, The main idea is the stuff we mute out as noise is actually just data that we can migrate back to the original location.
The other Item more power helps us with Is running Migrations at higher frequencies. right now we record at 250Hz(125 nyquest) but only process at 60Hz, This is mainly due to the price of computer time. doubling to 120Hz requires 4 times more computer time. But allows us to double our image resolution from to 50 meters to 25 meters. Considering some of our target reservoirs are as narrow as 20 feet, This type of thing is important.