Why it matters

Faiss is dominant ANN library. Understanding shapes vector DB.

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The architecture

Index types via factory strings.

Composition: IVF + PQ + refine.

GPU acceleration option.

Faiss architectureFactory stringsIVFPQ, IVF+HNSW + moreGPU accelerationbillion-scaleCompositionindex + refineMeta open-source; billion-scale + GPU + wide index support; used by many DBs
Faiss math.
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How it works end to end

Johnson + Douze + Jegou 2019.

Meta open-source.

Billion-scale GPU.

Foundation for Milvus + others.