TerraData used to have something along the lines that you describe for DB2. The major bottleneck with databases is the storage media, i.e. disk drive arrays.

TerraData used to have something along the lines that you describe for DB2. The major bottleneck with databases is the storage media, i.e. disk drive arrays. Since these are always orders of magnitude slower than CPU bound operations, databases would only minimally, if at all, benefit from a DPU. Even if you consider memory-resident only databases, once you go beyond cache memory access times become a big concern. Naturally still faster than disk, but compared to cache access times still a significant issue. It might be possible to program FPGAs for some of the most critical operations. However, the CPU to FPGA interconnect could then become a problem.