Tessera Foundation Model: New AI Tool for Earth Observation Released
A groundbreaking Earth observation model developed at the University of Cambridge has been made available to researchers worldwide.
What is Tessera?
Tessera (temporal Embeddings of Surface Spectra for Earth Representation and Analysis) is an AI-powered model that processes data from Copernicus Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 satellites. Originally released in 2025, the first fully peer-reviewed version was presented at a computer conference earlier this month.
Core Technology
The model produces high-accuracy datasets called "embeddings" that encode satellite observations over a full year. These embeddings can generate information-rich maps from highly compressed versions of original satellite imagery.
Key technical specifications:
- Data is compressed to 10-metre resolution
- Each pixel holds a time series for that location over a full year
- Embeddings span from 2017 to 2025
- The model fuses Sentinel-1 synthetic aperture radar data with Sentinel-2 optical data
Remarkable Efficiency
"Over 90% of final task performance is achievable using less than 1% of available labelled data."
The embeddings are lightweight enough to run on laptops or mobile devices, making advanced Earth observation accessible to users without high-powered computing resources.
Democratizing Access
Professor Srinivasan Keshav, co-lead of the project at the University of Cambridge, emphasized the model's accessibility:
"Our embeddings make the data more accessible to users from traditionally unserved communities, especially those from ecology, conservation, plant science and zoology. We've also made these available without requiring registration and at no cost."
Expert Perspectives
Nuno Miranda, Mission Manager for Sentinel-1 at ESA, highlighted the technological significance:
"Foundation models are the new frontier of AI applied to remote-sensing data. Tessera demonstrates how data from Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 missions can be applied in practice."
Professor David Coomes, co-lead and senior researcher at Cambridge, pointed to the model's practical value:
"Monitoring these environmental changes over vast scales is exactly the sort of problem that Tessera was designed to solve."
Real-World Application
In the UK, researchers are already putting Tessera to work. A partnership between Tessera, the Endangered Landscapes and Seascape Programme, and other UK entities is using the model to evaluate the efficacy of the UK government's nature protection schemes in Cumbria, northern England.