Vector Index
A vector index is the data structure (e.g., HNSW, IVF, PQ) used inside a vector database to organise vectors for sub-linear-time approximate nearest-neighbour search.
What is Vector Index?
A vector index is the data structure (e.g., HNSW, IVF, PQ) used inside a vector database to organise vectors for sub-linear-time approximate nearest-neighbour search.
A vector index is the data structure (e.g., HNSW, IVF, PQ) used inside a vector database to organise vectors for sub-linear-time approximate nearest-neighbour search.
Where is it used?
FAISS `IndexHNSWFlat` and `IndexIVFPQ`, Qdrant's HNSW, and Milvus's IVF_FLAT are common indexes; the index type trades recall, latency, and memory.
How to build it
Build `faiss.IndexHNSWFlat(d, 32)` with `efConstruction=40`, add vectors, set `index.hnsw.efSearch=64`, call `.search(q, k)`, and compare recall against a brute-force `IndexFlatL2`.