diff --git a/.circleci/config.yml b/.circleci/config.yml
index 03987d39c..70f4e0fe5 100644
--- a/.circleci/config.yml
+++ b/.circleci/config.yml
@@ -405,6 +405,7 @@ jobs:
             sudo dpkg -i cuda-keyring_1.1-1_all.deb
             sudo apt-get update
             sudo apt-get install cuda-toolkit-12-9 libcudnn9-dev-cuda-12
+            sudo apt-get install libnccl2 libnccl-dev
             sudo apt-get install libblas-dev liblapack-dev liblapacke-dev
             sudo apt-get install zip
             pip install auditwheel
diff --git a/mlx/distributed/distributed.cpp b/mlx/distributed/distributed.cpp
index 44205e87e..d71ebb9b1 100644
--- a/mlx/distributed/distributed.cpp
+++ b/mlx/distributed/distributed.cpp
@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@
 
 #include <unordered_map>
 
+#include "mlx/backend/cuda/cuda.h"
 #include "mlx/distributed/distributed.h"
 #include "mlx/distributed/distributed_impl.h"
 #include "mlx/distributed/mpi/mpi.h"
@@ -114,7 +115,7 @@ Group init(bool strict /* = false */, const std::string& bk /* = "any" */) {
   }
 
   // Create the requested communication group
-  std::shared_ptr<detail::GroupImpl> group;
+  std::shared_ptr<detail::GroupImpl> group{nullptr};
   std::string bk_ = bk;
   if (bk == "mpi") {
     group = mpi::init(strict);
@@ -123,8 +124,14 @@ Group init(bool strict /* = false */, const std::string& bk /* = "any" */) {
   } else if (bk == "nccl") {
     group = nccl::init(strict);
   } else if (bk == "any") {
-    group = ring::init(false);
-    bk_ = "ring";
+    if (mlx::core::cu::is_available()) {
+      group = nccl::init(false);
+      bk_ = "nccl";
+    }
+    if (group == nullptr) {
+      group = ring::init(false);
+      bk_ = "ring";
+    }
     if (group == nullptr) {
       group = mpi::init(false);
       bk_ = "mpi";
diff --git a/mlx/distributed/nccl/nccl.cpp b/mlx/distributed/nccl/nccl.cpp
index 43af9c724..751ba9130 100644
--- a/mlx/distributed/nccl/nccl.cpp
+++ b/mlx/distributed/nccl/nccl.cpp
@@ -204,13 +204,17 @@ inline void bootstrap_unique_id(
     int attempt = 0;
     bool connected = false;
 
+    bool do_log = std::getenv("NCCL_DEBUG") == "INFO";
     for (attempt = 0; attempt < max_retries; ++attempt) {
       if (connect(sock, reinterpret_cast<sockaddr*>(&serv), sizeof(serv)) ==
           0) {
         connected = true;
-        std::cout << "[Rank " << rank << "] Connected successfully on attempt "
-                  << attempt + 1 << std::endl;
-        break;
+        if (do_log) {
+          std::cout << "[Rank " << rank
+                    << "] Connected successfully on attempt " << attempt + 1
+                    << std::endl;
+          break;
+        }
       }
       if (errno != ECONNREFUSED) {
         break;
@@ -331,24 +335,33 @@ bool is_available() {
 }
 
 namespace detail {
-static std::string get_env_var_or_throw(const char* env_var_name) {
+std::string get_env_var_or_throw(const char* env_var_name, bool strict) {
   const char* value = std::getenv(env_var_name);
-  if (value == nullptr) {
+  if (value == nullptr && strict) {
     std::ostringstream msg;
     msg << "[nccl] Required environment variable '" << env_var_name
         << "' is not set. "
         << "Please set it before initializing the distributed backend.";
     throw std::runtime_error(msg.str());
   }
+  if (value == nullptr) {
+    return "";
+  }
   return std::string(value);
 }
 } // namespace detail
 
 std::shared_ptr<GroupImpl> init(bool strict /* = false */) {
-  std::string host = detail::get_env_var_or_throw("NCCL_HOST_IP");
-  std::string port = detail::get_env_var_or_throw("NCCL_PORT");
-  std::string rank_str = detail::get_env_var_or_throw("MLX_RANK");
-  std::string n_nodes_str = detail::get_env_var_or_throw("MLX_WORLD_SIZE");
+  std::string host = detail::get_env_var_or_throw("NCCL_HOST_IP", strict);
+  std::string port = detail::get_env_var_or_throw("NCCL_PORT", strict);
+  std::string rank_str = detail::get_env_var_or_throw("MLX_RANK", strict);
+  std::string n_nodes_str =
+      detail::get_env_var_or_throw("MLX_WORLD_SIZE", strict);
+  if (!strict &&
+      (host.empty() || port.empty() || rank_str.empty() ||
+       n_nodes_str.empty())) {
+    return nullptr;
+  }
 
   int rank = std::stoi(rank_str);
   int n_nodes = std::stoi(n_nodes_str);
diff --git a/python/mlx/distributed_run.py b/python/mlx/distributed_run.py
index 3dd373eb1..a588326de 100644
--- a/python/mlx/distributed_run.py
+++ b/python/mlx/distributed_run.py
@@ -428,7 +428,7 @@ def launch_nccl(parser, hosts, args, command):
     base_env = os.environ.copy()
     base_env.update(
         {
-            "NCCL_DEBUG": "INFO",
+            "NCCL_DEBUG": base_env.get("NCCL_DEBUG", "DEBUG"),
             "NCCL_SOCKET_IFNAME": "lo",  # Use loopback for local communication
             "NCCL_HOST_IP": master_host,
             "NCCL_PORT": str(master_port),
@@ -821,8 +821,6 @@ def main():
     )
 
     args, rest = parser.parse_known_args()
-    if rest[0] == "--":
-        rest.pop(0)
 
     if args.print_python:
         print(sys.executable)