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🤖 AI EngineeringID: adc-distance-computation

ADC Asymmetric Distance Computation

ADC 非对称距离计算
🎯Core Definition
Asymmetric Distance Computation (ADC) is a lookup-table acceleration algorithm in Product Quantization (PQ) that evaluates Euclidean distance or dot product between an unquantized query vector qRDq \in \mathbb{R}^D and a quantized database vector x^RD\hat{x} \in \mathbb{R}^D; at query onset, it pre-computes distances between query sub-vectors qmq_m and all K=256K=256 centroids cm,kc_{m, k} into a Look-Up Table (LUT: size M×256M \times 256), enabling database vector distance estimation via MM fast table lookups and additions m=1MLUT[m][codem]\sum_{m=1}^M \text{LUT}[m][\text{code}_m].
💡Use Cases
High-throughput scanning and re-ranking of millions of candidate vectors within IVF-PQ buckets in vector databases (Faiss, Milvus).
Key Problems Solved
Symmetric Distance Computation (SDC) quantizes both query and database vectors, compounding quantization error and destroying recall; ADC retains full FP32 query precision, converting DD floating-point multiplications into MM nanosecond table lookups, multiplying scanning throughput by 20x+ with minimal error.
🎯5 High-Frequency Exam Points
1
Derive the ADC distance formula d(q,x^)2=m=1Mqmcm,codem(x)2d(q, \hat{x})^2 = \sum_{m=1}^M \|q_m - c_{m, \text{code}_m(x)}\|^2 and its computational complexity?
2
Why is LUT pre-computation complexity O(KD)O(K \cdot D) negligible for single-query latency?
3
Quantify the differences between ADC and SDC in CPU L1/L2 cache hit rate and reconstruction accuracy?
4
How can CPU SIMD instructions (`_mm256_shuffle_epi8`) parallelize 16-byte LUT batch lookups?
5
How should the LUT be organized in GPU shared memory to prevent bank conflicts during batched ADC scans?
Updated 2026-08-14
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