Probably shortens the path between the applications (built on their distributed database manager) and the hardware/network compared to running applications on t

Probably shortens the path between the applications (built on their distributed database manager) and the hardware/network compared to running applications on top of Postgres or other DBs today (which still end up calling out to the kernel and other subsystems). If all your applications (as seems to be their intent) don't need the Linux kernel, but only the DB, then push the DB service into the operating system. Building on top of too many layers increases the overall complexity and reduces overall performance. Periodically chopping out part of the system and creating what you actually need, fresh, is sometimes necessary. Even if it doesn't produce a new product or final system on its own, gives you a direction for moving other systems if the theory pans out in practice.