diff --git a/mlx/distributed/nccl/CMakeLists.txt b/mlx/distributed/nccl/CMakeLists.txt
index 2f764c6ac..389a86c66 100644
--- a/mlx/distributed/nccl/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/mlx/distributed/nccl/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -1,8 +1,20 @@
 if(MLX_BUILD_CUDA)
   target_sources(mlx PRIVATE ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/nccl.cpp)
-  find_package(NCCL REQUIRED)
-  target_link_libraries(mlx PRIVATE ${NCCL_LIBRARIES})
-  target_include_directories(mlx PRIVATE ${NCCL_INCLUDE_DIRS})
+  find_package(NCCL)
+  if(NCCL_FOUND)
+    target_link_libraries(mlx PRIVATE ${NCCL_LIBRARIES})
+    target_include_directories(mlx PRIVATE ${NCCL_INCLUDE_DIRS})
+  else()
+    message(
+      STATUS
+        "NCCL not found, using stubs. To run distributed with NCCL backend, install NCCL."
+    )
+    file(
+      DOWNLOAD
+      "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/NVIDIA/nccl/refs/tags/v2.27.5-1/src/nccl.h.in"
+      "${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/nccl.h")
+    target_include_directories(mlx PRIVATE "${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}")
+  endif()
 else()
   target_sources(mlx PRIVATE ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/no_nccl.cpp)
 endif()