Clarifying the roles of cuDF and Wave

[JigaoLuo]

Hi all,

I noticed that cuDF has been integrated into Velox as a GPU backend in #12412, and I recently came across Wave. I’m curious about how cuDF and Wave position themselves relative to each other, given their overlapping focus on database operators.

From what I understand, cuDF’s integration into Velox aligns with the Composable Data Management paradigm, where GPU-accelerated primitives are modularly integrated into a broader execution framework. Does Wave serve a complementary or distinct purpose in this landscape? For instance, is it focused on a specific layer (e.g., IO on Nimble&Alpha that cudf does not support) or hardware target beyond GPUs?

I’d appreciate any insights you can share to help clarify their respective roles!