Welcome to my homepage. I am Yaoqi Chen (陈耀祺), a joint Ph.D. student at the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) and Microsoft Research Asia (MSRA), where I am also a research intern in the system research group. I am fortunate to be co-advised by Prof. Cheng Li at USTC, alongside Dr. Fan Yang, Dr. Qianxi Zhang, Dr. Qi Chen and Dr. Baotong Lu at MSRA. My primary research interests lie in vector search, agentic AI systems (e.g., long-term memory), and machine learning systems (e.g., efficient long-context models).
During my undergraduate studies at USTC, I achieved the highest GPA in the School of Computer Science. I also participated in many competitions, including the 10th Asia Supercomputer Community Student Supercomputer Challenge (ASC22-23). Under the guidance of Prof. Hong An, I optimized the training speed of deep molecular dynamics models (i.e., DeePMD-kit) on supercomputers, helping our team secure the second place in the final competition. In recognition of these achievements, I was honored with the National Scholarship and the Guo Moruo Scholarship, the highest undergraduate distinction at USTC.
As a Ph.D. student, I am driven by the pursuit of knowledge and a desire to build the next generation of AI infrastructure. I am eager to make meaningful contributions to the advancement of machine learning and agentic systems, continually seeking ways to enhance their efficiency and scalability.
Educational and Research Experience
- Sep. 2019 – Jul. 2023: B.S. at University of Science and Technology of China, majoring computer science and technology.
- Jul. 2022 – Jun. 2023: Intership at Microsoft Research Asia working on vector search and vector database.
- Sep. 2023 – Now: Joint Ph.D. student at University of Science and Technology of China and Microsoft Research Asia, focusing on efficient machine learning and agentic systems.
Publications
Yaoqi Chen, Jinkai Zhang, Baotong Lu, Qianxi Zhang, Chengruidong Zhang, Jingjia Luo, Di Liu, Huiqiang Jiang, Qi Chen, Jing Liu, Bailu Ding, Xiao Yan, Jiawei Jiang, Chen Chen, Mingxing Zhang, Yuqing Yang, Fan Yang and Mao Yang (2025). RetroInfer: A Vector-Storage Engine for Scalable Long-Context LLM Inference. In Proceedings of the VLDB Endowment, 19(5) (VLDB’26).
Yaoqi Chen, Ruicheng Zheng, Qi Chen, Shuotao Xu, Qianxi Zhang, Xue Wu, Weihao Han, Hua Yuan, Mingqin Li, Yujing Wang, Jason Li, Fan Yang, Hao Sun, Weiwei Deng, Feng Sun, Qi Zhang and Mao Yang (2024). OneSparse: A Unified System for Multi-index Vector Search. In Companion Proceedings of the ACM on Web Conference 2024 (WWW’24).
Qianxi Zhang, Shuotao Xu, Qi Chen, Guoxin Sui, Jiadong Xie, Zhizhen Cai, Yaoqi Chen, Yinxuan He, Yuqing Yang, Fan Yang, Mao Yang and Lidong Zhou (2023). VBASE: Unifying Online Vector Similarity Search and Relational Queries via Relaxed Monotonicity. In Proceedings of 17th USENIX Symposium on Operating Systems Design and Implementation (OSDI’23).
Selected Awards
- Nov. 2020, The 12th National Undergraduate Mathematics Competition, First Prize.
- Dec. 2020, National Scholarship.
- Apr. 2023, Guo Moruo Scholarship, which is the highest scholarship in USTC.
- May. 2023, ASC Student Supercomputer Challenge 2022-2023, Silver Prize.
- Jun. 2023, Outstanding Graduates.