Former engineer on large research grants (in the us) here. At least in the US a lot of those recurring costs are covered by the standard overhead your instituti

Former engineer on large research grants (in the us) here. At least in the US a lot of those recurring costs are covered by the standard overhead your institution tacks onto all grants for administrative and facilities costs so you buy a bunch of machines with extended warranties (which should be longer then the terms of most grants) and that covers almost all of your costs. Once they go out of warranty you either use them until they die, scrounge for funds to keep them going or hopefully get a new grant. Also, things are changing, but it is/was hard to ear mark funds for the cloud in a grant so spending the money up front was often what needed to happen.