There are quite a few problems where you need a lot of memory and CPU performance for just a relatively short amount of time like a few hours per day or even ju

There are quite a few problems where you need a lot of memory and CPU performance for just a relatively short amount of time like a few hours per day or even just a few hours per week. Forecasting or complex optimization problems for example. In these cases the amount of money you spend on hardware virtual or otherwise is negligible. Depending on what you do it might just as well be a rounding error.