The second PET Rapid Image Reconstruction Challenge (PETRIC2) is scheduled to run from 15 November 2025 to 15 February 2026. The challenge aims to advance research in the development of fast positron emission tomography (PET) image reconstruction algorithms that are suitable for real-world clinical data.

Building on the success of the first PETRIC challenge and the clinical adoption of regularised image reconstruction methods in PET and other imaging modalities, PETRIC2 focuses on a smoothed version of the relative difference prior. The event seeks to encourage innovation that balances reconstruction accuracy and computational efficiency.

Participants will be provided with a large collection of low-statistics phantom datasets acquired from various clinical PET scanners. The core task is to develop algorithms that can reconstruct images as close as possible to the converged reference image (for example, in terms of mean volume of interest standardised uptake value, or SUV), while doing so in the shortest possible computation time.

The three highest-ranked teams in the PETRIC2 Challenge will be announced during the Symposium on AI & Reconstruction for Biomedical Imaging, which will take place in London from 9–10 March 2026.