# .plan-26-03: TESSERA scaling and speaking at AI4Nature's launch

*2026-01-18 — note*


While my colleagues have been busy with start-of-term matters, I've been
enjoying being able to get some research done while on sabbatical! I got back to
Cambridge from India and settled back to hacking on my research projects.

## Vultr and Nvidia

I caught up with the AMD and Vultr team, as they have been sponsoring TESSERA
with giving us access to an AMD MI325X 6x node, which has been tremendous help
in getting TESSERA embeddings going. Before Christmas, our [DAWN access](https://anil.recoil.org/videos/48a7ab10-3f49-4978-a00f-c26b64c2cae7) expired and we had literally no
GPUs to continue working on TESSERA, so Vultr stepping in at extremely short
notice has been an incredible godsend for our plucky geospatial project.
The team from Vultr, especially Kasia Hilborne, have been delightfully nice to
work with as well\!

Following up with the extremely random [Jensen Huang chat](https://anil.recoil.org/notes/jensen-huang-hawking) last year, the nVidia team visited and we also
discussed future collaborations around TESSERA.  And then I went to the pub
with the AMD crew, so this was pretty much full GPU hustling coverage for the
week except for the absence of anyone from Intel in my immediate vicinity.

## Speaking at the AI4Nature launch

I got invited by [Sam Reynolds](https://samreynolds.org) to go speak at the [AI4Nature launch](https://ai4nature.org/) down at the [IET in London](https://savoyplace.theiet.org/).

> Ai4Nature is a cross-sectoral collaborative initiative to advance responsible
> AI applications in biodiversity data and nature recovery and enhancement,
> building sustainable global influence through collaborative standards
> development, education, and knowledge sharing.
> <cite>\-- [AI4Nature](https://ai4nature.org), 2025</cite>

<figure class="image-center"><img src="/images/ai4nature-2.webp" alt="Pretty full house in the IET library just before I spoke!" title="Pretty full house in the IET library just before I spoke!" loading="lazy" srcset="/images/ai4nature-2.768.webp 768w, /images/ai4nature-2.640.webp 640w, /images/ai4nature-2.480.webp 480w, /images/ai4nature-2.3840.webp 3840w, /images/ai4nature-2.320.webp 320w, /images/ai4nature-2.2560.webp 2560w, /images/ai4nature-2.1920.webp 1920w, /images/ai4nature-2.1600.webp 1600w, /images/ai4nature-2.1440.webp 1440w, /images/ai4nature-2.1280.webp 1280w, /images/ai4nature-2.1024.webp 1024w"><figcaption>Pretty full house in the IET library just before I spoke!</figcaption></figure>

I talked about how modern AI initiatives might help, similarly to the [red pill and blue pill talk last week](https://anil.recoil.org/notes/2026w2) at the [Conservation Evidence conference](https://anil.recoil.org/notes/red-pill-conservation). The talk was recorded, but the recording just focussed on me and didn't show my slides, so you'll have to [follow along with my slides](https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~avsm/slides/ai4nature-jan26) by hand if you watch it\!

<div class="video-center"><iframe title="" width="100%" height="315px" src="https://crank.recoil.org/videos/embed/41723993-6f58-4e78-ba01-260295b7d1f1" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen sandbox="allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-popups allow-forms"></iframe></div>

You can read [a full roundup on the AI4Nature journal](https://ai4nature.org/the-alliance-journal/usot739onqmh3n43tgt3r8b9m6j3ye) along with all the other talks. There were an interesting mix of urban developers, remote sensing experts and conservation ecologists there, all wondering how to balance the delicate mix of nature and human needs. I sent several people there our just-out [LIFE recipes](https://anil.recoil.org/notes/life-uses-paper) [paper](https://anil.recoil.org/papers/2025-life-uses) and others the [FOOD biodiversity explorer](https://anil.recoil.org/notes/exploring-food-impacts).
Thanks to Sam for the invite to a great event\!

<figure class="image-center"><img src="/images/ai4nature-1.webp" alt="" title="" loading="lazy" srcset="/images/ai4nature-1.768.webp 768w, /images/ai4nature-1.640.webp 640w, /images/ai4nature-1.480.webp 480w, /images/ai4nature-1.3840.webp 3840w, /images/ai4nature-1.320.webp 320w, /images/ai4nature-1.2560.webp 2560w, /images/ai4nature-1.1920.webp 1920w, /images/ai4nature-1.1600.webp 1600w, /images/ai4nature-1.1440.webp 1440w, /images/ai4nature-1.1280.webp 1280w, /images/ai4nature-1.1024.webp 1024w"><figcaption></figcaption></figure>

## Picking up Tomas's new PL book

[Dominic Orchard](https://dorchard.github.io) and I went along to the CUP bookshop to pick up our PhD buddy Tomas Petricek's latest book on "[Cultures of Programming](https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cultures-of-programming/075A2D1DE611EE47807A683147B21691)". Although it was closed on first visit, I nipped along later and found the last copy, which I'm now reading with great enjoyment.

<figure class="image-center"><img src="/images/cup-visit-1.webp" alt="Dominic and I go shopping, to find a closed bookshop, woops" title="Dominic and I go shopping, to find a closed bookshop, woops" loading="lazy" srcset="/images/cup-visit-1.768.webp 768w, /images/cup-visit-1.640.webp 640w, /images/cup-visit-1.480.webp 480w, /images/cup-visit-1.3840.webp 3840w, /images/cup-visit-1.320.webp 320w, /images/cup-visit-1.2560.webp 2560w, /images/cup-visit-1.1920.webp 1920w, /images/cup-visit-1.1600.webp 1600w, /images/cup-visit-1.1440.webp 1440w, /images/cup-visit-1.1280.webp 1280w, /images/cup-visit-1.1024.webp 1024w"><figcaption>Dominic and I go shopping, to find a closed bookshop, woops</figcaption></figure>

Fun links:
- Claude Cowork got released, and it uses a [much worse VM than Docker for Desktop](https://bsky.app/profile/anil.recoil.org/post/3mcc5kxbmf22t) so I sent them our [ICFP paper on Docker](https://anil.recoil.org/papers/2025-docker-icfp) in case they wanted to vibe up a better base image.
- I chatted a bit with [Michael Dales](https://mynameismwd.org) about his struggles with [buffered file IO on macOS](https://digitalflapjack.com/weeknotes/gdal-and-filestar-vs-macos/) and spelunked [deep into macOS libc](https://github.com/OSGeo/gdal/issues/13672#issuecomment-3731879519) to discover just how bad the situation is.
  
Synopsis: Scaling TESSERA embeddings on Vultr AMD GPUs, speaking at the AI4Nature launch in London, and picking up Tomas Petricek's new PL book.
Words: 522

Discussion:
- Bluesky: <https://bsky.app/profile/anil.recoil.org/post/3mcc5kxbmf22t>
- Bluesky: <https://bsky.app/profile/tomasp.net/post/3mbytex2e422k>
- LinkedIn: <https://www.linkedin.com/posts/aifornature_ai4nature-naturerecovery-responsibleai-activity-7417969655228637184-MHsF>

## Related

- [Discussing effective conservation with all the UK Chief Scientists](https://anil.recoil.org/notes/red-pill-conservation) (note, 2026-02-03)
- [Moonshot: AI, Evidence, and Human Judgement in Nature Recovery](https://anil.recoil.org/videos/41723993-6f58-4e78-ba01-260295b7d1f1) (video, 2026-01-22)
- [Five ways to use the LIFE metric for conservation decision-making](https://anil.recoil.org/notes/life-uses-paper) (note, 2026-01-12)
- [.plan-26-02: Back from India and straight into the conservation conference](https://anil.recoil.org/notes/2026w2) (note, 2026-01-11)
- [Informing conservation problems and actions using an indicator of extinction risk: A detailed assessment of applying the LIFE metric](https://anil.recoil.org/papers/2025-life-uses) (paper, 2026-01-01)
- [Jensen Huang receives the Hawking Fellowship at Cambridge](https://anil.recoil.org/notes/jensen-huang-hawking) (note, 2025-11-04)
- [Exploring the biodiversity impacts of what we choose to eat](https://anil.recoil.org/notes/exploring-food-impacts) (note, 2025-09-09)
- [Functional Networking for Millions of Docker Desktops](https://anil.recoil.org/papers/2025-docker-icfp) (paper, 2025-08-01)
- [BBC interview about new Cambridge supercomputer](https://anil.recoil.org/videos/48a7ab10-3f49-4978-a00f-c26b64c2cae7) (video, 2023-11-02)

---
Canonical: https://anil.recoil.org/notes/2026w3
Type: note
Tags: tessera, evidence, iucn, london, vultr, oxcaml