January 2025, Release Update 23.7

Included are some notable Oracle AI Vector Search updates with Oracle AI Database 26ai, Release Update 23.7. Note: If you are using RAC instances, certain features must be enabled using Oracle RAC two-stage rolling updates to ensure that any patches are enabled on all nodes. For more information, see Oracle Real Application Clusters Administration and Deployment Guide.

Feature	Description
External Table support	Columns of type VECTOR can be included in external tables, providing the option to store vector embeddings used for AI workloads outside of the database while still using the database as a semantic search engine. If using RAC instances, you must enable Patch 37244967 using Oracle RAC two-stage rolling updates. Vectors in External Tables
Arithmetic and aggregate function support	The arithmetic operators for addition, subtraction, and multiplication along with the aggregate functions SUM and AVG can be used with vectors and columns of type VECTOR. Arithmetic operators are supported for use with vectors in both SQL and PL/SQL. If using RAC instances, you must enable Patch 37289468 using Oracle RAC two-stage rolling updates for support in PL/SQL. Arithmetic Operators Aggregate Functions
PL/SQL BINARY vector support	In addition to FLOAT32 (the default format for comma-separated string representations of vectors), FLOAT64, and INT8 dimension formats, you can also use the BINARY dimension format. A BINARY vector represents each dimension as a single bit (0 or 1). BINARY vectors can now be created and declared in PL/SQL, supported in the same way as they are in SQL. If using RAC instances, you must enable Patch 37289468 using Oracle RAC two-stage rolling updates. BINARY Vectors
PL/SQL JACCARD distance metric support	The distance metric JACCARD can be used in PL/SQL for similarity searches with BINARY vectors. In PL/SQL, there is no standalone shorthand JACCARD_DISTANCE function. Use JACCARD as the distance metric parameter of the VECTOR_DISTANCE function instead. If using RAC instances, you must enable Patch 37289468 using Oracle RAC two-stage rolling updates. VECTOR_DISTANCE For additional information about VECTOR operations supported by PL/SQL, see Oracle AI Database PL/SQL Language Reference
Globally Distributed Database support	Columns of type VECTOR can be included in sharded tables and duplicated tables in a distributed database, and vector indexes are supported on sharded tables in a distributed database, with some restrictions. Vectors in Distributed Database Tables Vector Indexes in a Globally Distributed Database "Restrictions" in Create Tables Using the VECTOR Data Type
In-Database Algorithms Support for VECTOR Data Type Predictors	The VECTOR data type is supported and can be used as an input to database machine learning algorithms such as classification, anomaly, regression, clustering and feature extraction. Overview of Oracle AI Vector Search More information on using VECTOR data type in machine learning can be found in Vector Data Type Support
Support for Image Transformer Models with AI Vector Search Using the In-Database ONNX Runtime	The Oracle AI Database ONNX runtime engine includes support of models for encoding images. The ONNX Pipeline models provide methods for: Text Embedding - ONNX Pipeline Models: Text Embedding Image Embedding - ONNX Pipeline Models: Image Embedding Multi-modal Embedding - ONNX Pipeline Models: CLIP Multi-Modal Embedding Text Classification - ONNX Pipeline Models: Text Classification Reranking - ONNX Pipeline Models: Reranking Pipeline
Hybrid Vector Index for JSON	New PATHS field is added to the DBMS_VECTOR_CHAIN.VECTORIZER that allows specification of an array of path objects : CREATE_PREFERENCE New syntax in the DBMS_HYBRID_VECTOR.SEARCH API to allow searches restricted to paths. The VECTOR field accepts an INPATH parameter which an array of valid JSON paths to restrict the search : SEARCH Support for the creation of a LOCAL index on a HVI when the underlying vector index_type is IVF : CREATE HYBRID VECTOR INDEX Support for running optimization only on the $VR table for an HVI : Hybrid Vector Index Maintenance Operations
Included Columns in Neighbor Partition Vector Indexes	Included columns permit additional table (non-vector) columns to be stored in a Neighbor Partition vector index. The benefit is that query execution is optimized by removing the need to access the underlying base table to retrieve these columns. If using RAC instances, you must enable Patch 37306139 using Oracle RAC two-stage rolling updates. Included Columns with IVF Indexes