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Vector database

Database vettoriale

A vector database is a store specialized in keeping and searching vectors, the numerical representations (embeddings) of texts, images or audio produced by a model. Unlike a traditional database, which seeks exact word matches, a vector one finds items that are "close" in meaning by measuring the distance between vectors. Imagine a library where books are arranged in space by topic rather than by title: similar ones sit near each other, so searching "Italian cooking" also surfaces "Mediterranean recipes" without matching words. It uses smart indexes to stay very fast even with billions of vectors.

Definition

A vector database matters because it is the engine behind semantic search and RAG systems. Without it, giving a language model fast access to a vast external knowledge base would be impractical at scale.

Related terms

• Embedding
• Semantic search
• RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation)
• Retrieval
• Reranking

More in AI Fundamentals

• LLM (Large Language Model)
• Token
• Context Window
• Temperature
• AI Hallucination
• Fine-tuning
• RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation)
• Embedding

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