New World’s Biggest Prime Number

When will we have a one billion digit prime? Good question! In the early days of the GIMPS search, my predictions were reasonable, but recently things have taken a turn (see the graph) that defies prediction using simple regressions and past history. My last prediction was way off!
I am getting out of the time prediction business. Future predictions should be based not only on heuristics such as found on the page Where is the Next Mersenne?, but should also track the usage data for projects like GIMPS. It is the current participants, not the past, which will find the next prime.(more)

M25964951 = 7,816,230 2005 Nowak, Woltman, Kurowski, et al. [GIMPS, PrimeNet]
M30402457 = 9,152,052 2005 Cooper, Boone, Woltman, Kurowski, et al. [GIMPS, PrimeNet]
M32582657 = 9,808,358 2006 Cooper, Boone, Woltman, Kurowski, et al. [GIMPS, PrimeNet]
M43112609 = 12,978,189 2008 E_Smith, Woltman, Kurowski, et al. [GIMPS, PrimeNet]
M57885161 = 17,425,170 2013 Cooper, Woltman, Kurowski, et al. [GIMPS, PrimeNet]
M74207281 = 22,338,618 2016 Cooper, Woltman, Kurowski, Blosser, et al. [GIMPS, PrimeNet]