DuckDB in Research S01E04: Arjen P. de Vries
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Description
In this episode of the DuckDB in Research series, we’re joined by Arjen de Vries, Professor of Data Science at Radboud University. Arjen dives into his team’s development of a DuckDB extension for FAISS, a library originally developed at Facebook for efficient similarity search and vector operations.
We explore the growing importance of embeddings and dense retrieval in modern information retrieval systems, and how DuckDB’s zero-copy architecture and tight integration with the Python ecosystem make it a compelling choice for managing large-scale vector data. Arjen shares insights into the technical challenges and architectural decisions behind the extension, comparisons with DuckDB’s native VSS (vector search) solution, and the broader vision of integrating vector search more deeply into relational databases.
Along the way, we also touch on DuckDB's extension ecosystem, its potential for future research, and why tools like this are reshaping how we build and query modern AI-enabled systems.
