### 1. Objective
This document outlines a complete technical strategy and architecture for implementing an Agentic Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) system. The final chosen technology stack comprises:
- **Flowise** for no-code multimodal workflow orchestration.
- **SigLIP (timm/ViT-B-16-SigLIP2-256)** for multimodal embeddings.
- **Qdrant** for vector database management and semantic retrieval.
- **DeepSeek 3.1** LLM for multimodal reasoning and text generation.
- **n8n** for automation and orchestration of backend workflows.
The system is optimized for local hardware: a desktop with AMD 12-core CPU, 64 GB RAM, and an Nvidia RTX 2080 Super GPU (8 GB VRAM), running Garuda Linux.
### 2. Data Profile
- Total dataset size: ~5 TB
- Data types: Text (DOCX, Markdown), Images (PNG, JPG), Videos, XLSX, PDFs, complex multimodal documents.
### 3. Embedding Strategy
The selected embedding model is **timm/ViT-B-16-SigLIP2-256**, an open-source multimodal model optimized for cross-modal retrieval tasks.
#### Embedding Process
- **Textual data (DOCX, Markdown, XLSX):** Convert into plain text segments, embedding directly via SigLIP.
- **Images:** Direct embedding with SigLIP image encoder.
- **Videos:** Extract keyframes (1 every 10–30 seconds) and embed each frame with SigLIP image encoder.
- **Complex documents (PDF, DOCX with visuals):** Render visually-rich pages as images and embed them via SigLIP, in addition to embedding the textual content separately.
#### Advantages of SigLIP ViT-B-16-256
- Efficient 256-dimensional vector size reduces storage and computational overhead.
- Superior cross-modal embedding quality, enabling effective multimodal search.
- Optimized for local hardware, ensuring fast inference and low GPU VRAM consumption.
### 4. Vector Database: Qdrant
#### Key Reasons for Choosing Qdrant
- Highly efficient local performance via scalar quantization and disk-based vector storage.
- Robust HNSW indexing, optimized for large-scale datasets (5TB).
- Excellent Flowise integration.
#### Qdrant Structure
- Separate collections for different modalities (e.g., texts, images, videos).
- Metadata-rich records, including original filenames, timestamps, modality type, and semantic labels.
- Scalar quantization to optimize RAM usage and speed up searches.
### 5. Large Language Model (LLM): DeepSeek 3.1
#### Role in Architecture
- Performs complex multimodal reasoning tasks based on retrieved content.
- Provides generation of human-like, detailed answers and supports visual question-answering.
#### Integration with Stack
- Direct integration via Flowise pipelines.
- Accepts context retrieved from Qdrant embeddings, providing insightful responses.
### 6. Workflow Automation: n8n
#### Automation Capabilities
- Data ingestion and embedding pipelines.
- Scheduled embedding updates and Qdrant data synchronization.
- Automated backup and maintenance tasks.
#### Advantages
- No-code approach aligning perfectly with Flowise.
- Easy automation of repetitive workflows, simplifying operations significantly.
### 7. Workflow Orchestration: Flowise
#### Role in System
- Provides no-code orchestration for embedding processes, Qdrant integration, and DeepSeek LLM response workflows.
- Visual management and intuitive pipeline creation.
### 8. Complete Hardware Setup
- **CPU**: AMD 12-core
- **RAM**: 64 GB
- **GPU**: Nvidia RTX 2080 Super (8 GB VRAM)
- **OS**: Garuda Linux
#### Performance Expectations
- Local inference of SigLIP embeddings within milliseconds.
- Efficient batch embedding, leveraging GPU parallelism and CPU optimization.
- Comfortable handling of large-scale multimodal dataset.
### 9. Comparison with Alternative Solutions
- **OpenAI Embedding API:** Slightly better accuracy, but significantly higher cost, higher latency, lower privacy.
- **Weaviate vs. Qdrant:** Qdrant provides better local performance, lower resource demands, simpler integration, and greater multimodal embedding efficiency.
- **Higher Dimension Embeddings (384 or 512):** Higher dimensional embeddings provide marginal accuracy improvements at the expense of performance and scalability. The chosen 256-dimensional embeddings balance accuracy and efficiency optimally.
### 10. MacBook Pro M4 Performance Comparison
- MacBook Pro M4 (48 GB Unified Memory) could perform embedding tasks faster and with higher batch throughput due to unified memory and efficiency of Apple Silicon.
- For desktop workloads, current RTX 2080 Super is sufficient, though the M4 MacBook could be superior for portable embedding workflows.
### 11. Privacy and Compliance
- Local-only setup ensures complete data privacy and full compliance with data protection regulations.
- No external API calls or cloud dependencies, thus maintaining stringent data security.
### 12. Final Technical Stack
The final technology stack of Flowise + SigLIP (timm/ViT-B-16-SigLIP2-256) + Qdrant + DeepSeek 3.1 + n8n is strongly recommended, providing optimal performance, scalability, ease-of-use, cost efficiency, and data privacy for the multimodal Agentic RAG system implementation.
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