I am a third-year Ph.D. student in the School of Computer Science and Engineering at University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, advised by Prof. Kai Zheng and Han Su. In 2020, I obtained my dual Bachelor’s degrees in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from University of Electronic Science and Technology of China and University of Glasgow (Graduated with First-class honor degree).

Research Interests

• Machine Learning for Query Optimization

  I’m dedicated to integrating traditional rule-based query optimization techniques with machine learning technology to develop an efficient (outperforming traditional databases), autonomous (requiring no human maintenance), and practical (applicable to real products) database query optimizer. This approach and philosophy can be extended to various modules within the database to ultimately form a fully autonomous database management system.

• LLM Agent & Database Agent

  I focus on using Reinforcement Learning (RL) to enhance LLM’s agent capabilities in vertical domains through test time scaling. My work proposes DBAgent, an autonomous agent that emulates expert’s iterative “Think-Act-Observe” cognitive workflow, integrating dynamic tool-use mechanisms, multi-modal perception, and RL-driven reasoning engines to achieve autonomous database operations and maintenance, representing a significant step towards collaborative and autonomous database administration.

Publications

Recent Work

Optimizing Block Skipping for High-Dimensional Data with Learned Adaptive Curve.
Xu Chen, Shuncheng Liu, Tong Yuan, Tao Ye, Kai Zeng, Han Su, Kai Zheng.
SIGMOD, 2025.

DACE: A Database-Agnostic Cost Estimator.
Zibo Liang, Xu Chen, Yuyang Xia, Runfan Ye, Haitian Chen, Jiandong Xie, Kai Zheng.
ICDE, 2024.

LEON: A New Framework for ML-Aided Query Optimization.
Xu Chen, Haitian Chen, Zibo Liang, Shuncheng Liu, Jinghong Wang, Kai Zeng, Han Su, Kai Zheng.
VLDB, 2023.

BASE: Bridging the Gap between Cost and Latency for Query Optimization.
Xu Chen, Zhen Wang, Shuncheng Liu, Yaliang Li, Kai Zeng, Bolin Ding, Jingren Zhou, Han Su, Kai Zheng.
VLDB, 2023.

Earlier Work

Efficient Learning with Pseudo Labels for Query Cost Estimation.
Shuncheng Liu, Xu Chen, Yan Zhao, Jin Chen, Rui Zhou, Kai Zheng
CIKM 2022

HeGA: Heterogeneous Graph Aggregation Network for Trajectory Prediction in High-Density Traffic.
Shuncheng Liu, Xu Chen, Ziniu Wu, Liwei Deng, Han Su, Kai Zheng
CIKM 2022

RISE: A Velocity Control Framework with Minimal Impacts based on Reinforcement Learning.
Yuyang Xia, Shuncheng Liu, Xu Chen, Zhi Xu, Kai Zheng, Han Su
CIKM 2022

Astral: An Autoencoder-Based Model for Pedestrian Trajectory Prediction of Variable-Length.
Yupeng Diao, Yiteng Su, Ximu Zeng, Xu Chen, Shuncheng Liu, Han Su
DASFAA (Workshops) 2022

TSummary: A Traffic Summarization System Using Semantic Words.
Xu Chen, Ximu Zeng, Shuncheng Liu, Zhi Xu, Yuyang Xia, Ruyi Lai, Han Su
DASFAA (Workshops) 2022

Efficient Join Order Selection Learning with Graph-based Representation.
Jin Chen, Guanyu Ye, Yan Zhao, Shuncheng Liu, Liwei Deng, Xu Chen, Rui Zhou, Kai Zheng
KDD 2022

PATROL: A Velocity Control Framework for Autonomous Vehicle via Spatial-Temporal Reinforcement Learning.
Zhi Xu, Shuncheng Liu, Ziniu Wu, Xu Chen, Kai Zeng, Kai Zheng, Han Su
CIKM 2021

SCSG Attention: A Self-centered Star Graph with Attention for Pedestrian Trajectory Prediction.
Xu Chen, Shuncheng Liu, Zhi Xu, Yupeng Diao, Shaozhi Wu, Kai Zheng, Han Su
DASFAA 2021