On January 4, 2024, CMU professor Andy Pavlo, known for his acclaimed database lectures, published his 2023 database review, primarily focusing on the rise of vector databases. 2023 saw notable advancements in this field with significant investments made in April. By 2023Q3, vector databases were used as external memory for large language models. In 2023Q4, this approach started to gain popularity and became widely known as Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), with some even predicting that 2024 would be the "Year of RAG." Drawing from Andy's viewpoints and the challenges facing RAG, we would like to provide our own evaluation of the future prospects for vector databases.
Looking to the future of vector databases
· 15 min read