At the Computex tradeshow in Taiwan, Nvidia quietly took the wraps off of the Compact Aerial RAN Computer (ARC-Compact). This is the server that Nvidia hopes will drive MNO uptake of its AI-RAN portfolio, encouraging MNOs to move from bespoke ASIC-based systems into what Nvidia calls commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) base station servers. We have been skeptical of the AI-RAN/GPUaaS pitch for some time, so to get that disclaimer out of the way, the return on these investments is still very much unknown. Nvidia promises that installing these GPU-rich servers throughout an MNO network, hooking it all to the Aerial platform, and then opening the gates to third-parties that will pay to use that spare GPU capacity will pay off –…