Hong Kong firm Lecco Technology has developed what it says is the world's first software tool for speeding up SQL queries on Oracle databases.
Lecco SQL Expert has been found to improve the performance of Oracle Relational Databases by 400 per cent.
The application works by using artificial intelligence techniques to rewrite SQL queries, used to extract information from the database. This way complex, inefficient queries can be rewritten, enabling them to retrieve data faster.
Lecco managing director Stephen Wong said it was a key breakthrough using artificial intelligence.
Technical director Richard To said studies had shown SQL activities could consume as much as 70 per cent of a system's resources in a database server and that 60 per cent of database performance problems were caused by applications.
With Oracle accounting for about 60 per cent of corporate databases worldwide, the company is hoping to see a lot of demand for the product. Mr Wong said the company planned to expand the product to cover other databases such as Sybase and Microsoft SQL Server soon.