Apparently if you could send an iPad2 back to 1997 it would be the 7th most powerful computer on earth.

My first computer was a Commodore Vic20 with 3.5K RAM and a 2Mhz 8 bit chip.

I've got 8GB RAM in my works laptop and some of our devs have 16GB

My previous works machine originally had 2GB RAM upgraded from 1GB. In 4 years our developer workstations have gone from 1/2 GB to 16GB.

It isn't a simple mathematical progression, you can't extrapolate out and say that in 6 years they'll be at 1TB.

The thing that drove the need for increased RAM was the practise of continuous integration. The need to be capable to build and run the entire system and its tests on your local workstation at the same time that you are writing office documents, answering emails and using a browser.

For us we are also moving to video conferencing so webcams are driving the need for more power.

There is only so much a single individual can do so unless we end up with interaction via holodeck I can't see the push for increased workstation capacity increasing indefinitely.

Then there is the renting of processing power in the cloud as has already been mentioned. Will I even need high powered workstations in the future?