diff --git a/examples/main/main.cpp b/examples/main/main.cpp
index 3a171925b..154a4113a 100644
--- a/examples/main/main.cpp
+++ b/examples/main/main.cpp
@@ -671,5 +671,7 @@ int main(int argc, char ** argv) {
     llama_free(ctx);
     llama_free_model(model);
 
+    llama_finalize_backend();
+
     return 0;
 }
diff --git a/examples/perplexity/perplexity.cpp b/examples/perplexity/perplexity.cpp
index dd54ed3c4..5c4523795 100644
--- a/examples/perplexity/perplexity.cpp
+++ b/examples/perplexity/perplexity.cpp
@@ -172,5 +172,7 @@ int main(int argc, char ** argv) {
     llama_free(ctx);
     llama_free_model(model);
 
+    llama_finalize_backend();
+
     return 0;
 }
diff --git a/ggml.c b/ggml.c
index afeb72ff0..2f00428d3 100644
--- a/ggml.c
+++ b/ggml.c
@@ -26,6 +26,8 @@
 #include <limits.h>
 #include <stdarg.h>
 
+#include <mpi.h>
+
 #ifdef GGML_USE_METAL
 #include <unistd.h>
 #endif
@@ -4648,6 +4650,35 @@ struct ggml_tensor * ggml_dup_tensor(struct ggml_context * ctx, const struct ggm
     return ggml_new_tensor_impl(ctx, src->type, src->n_dims, src->ne, NULL);
 }
 
+struct ggml_tensor * ggml_send_tensor(
+        struct ggml_context * ctx,
+        const struct ggml_tensor *src,
+        int dst_rank) {
+
+    struct ggml_tensor * result = ggml_new_i32(ctx, 0);
+
+    result->op   = GGML_OP_SEND;
+    result->src0 = src;
+    result->extra = (void *)dst_rank;
+
+    return result;
+}
+
+struct ggml_tensor * ggml_recv_tensor(
+        struct ggml_context * ctx,
+        const struct ggml_tensor *parent,
+        struct ggml_tensor *dst,
+        int src_rank) {
+
+    struct ggml_tensor * result = dst;
+
+    result->op   = GGML_OP_RECV;
+    result->src0 = parent; // just used for graph computation
+    result->extra = (void *)src_rank;
+
+    return result;
+}
+
 struct ggml_tensor * ggml_set_zero(struct ggml_tensor * tensor) {
     memset(tensor->data, 0, ggml_nbytes(tensor));
     return tensor;
@@ -8191,6 +8222,52 @@ static void ggml_compute_forward_dup(
     }
 }
 
+// ggml_compute_forward_recv
+
+static void ggml_compute_forward_recv(
+        const struct ggml_compute_params * params,
+        struct ggml_tensor * dst) {
+    if (params->type == GGML_TASK_INIT || params->type == GGML_TASK_FINALIZE) {
+        return;
+    }
+    GGML_ASSERT(dst->type == GGML_TYPE_F32);
+#ifdef GGML_USE_MPI
+    MPI_Status status;
+    int my_rank;
+    MPI_Comm_rank(MPI_COMM_WORLD, &my_rank);
+    // fprintf(stderr, "(%d) Receiving from (%d)\n", my_rank, (int)dst->extra);
+    int retval = MPI_Recv(dst->data, dst->ne[0] * dst->ne[1], MPI_FLOAT, (int)dst->extra, MPI_ANY_TAG, MPI_COMM_WORLD, &status);
+    // fprintf(stderr, "(%d) Received from (%d)\n", my_rank, (int)dst->extra);
+    GGML_ASSERT(retval == MPI_SUCCESS);
+#else
+    GGML_ASSERT(false);
+#endif
+}
+
+// ggml_compute_forward_send
+
+static void ggml_compute_forward_send(
+        const struct ggml_compute_params * params,
+        struct ggml_tensor * src,
+        struct ggml_tensor * dst) {
+    if (params->type == GGML_TASK_INIT || params->type == GGML_TASK_FINALIZE) {
+        return;
+    }
+    GGML_ASSERT(src->type == GGML_TYPE_F32);
+    GGML_ASSERT(dst->type == GGML_TYPE_I32);
+#ifdef GGML_USE_MPI
+    int my_rank;
+    MPI_Comm_rank(MPI_COMM_WORLD, &my_rank);
+    // fprintf(stderr, "(%d) Sending to (%d)\n", my_rank, (int)dst->extra);
+    int retval = MPI_Send(src->data, src->ne[0] * src->ne[1], MPI_FLOAT, (int)dst->extra, 0, MPI_COMM_WORLD);
+    // fprintf(stderr, "(%d) Sent to (%d)\n", my_rank, (int)dst->extra);
+    ggml_set_i32(dst, retval);
+    GGML_ASSERT(retval == MPI_SUCCESS);
+#else
+    GGML_ASSERT(false);
+#endif
+}
+
 // ggml_compute_forward_add
 
 static void ggml_compute_forward_add_f32(
@@ -15420,6 +15497,14 @@ static void ggml_compute_forward(struct ggml_compute_params * params, struct ggm
             {
                 ggml_compute_forward_dup(params, tensor->src0, tensor);
             } break;
+        case GGML_OP_SEND:
+            {
+                ggml_compute_forward_send(params, tensor->src0, tensor);
+            } break;
+        case GGML_OP_RECV:
+            {
+                ggml_compute_forward_recv(params, tensor);
+            } break;
         case GGML_OP_ADD:
             {
                 ggml_compute_forward_add(params, tensor->src0, tensor->src1, tensor);
@@ -15710,6 +15795,14 @@ static void ggml_compute_backward(struct ggml_context * ctx, struct ggml_tensor
                     src0->grad = ggml_add_impl(ctx, src0->grad, tensor->grad, inplace);
                 }
             } break;
+        case GGML_OP_SEND:
+            {
+                GGML_ASSERT(false); // TODO: not implemented
+            } break;
+        case GGML_OP_RECV:
+            {
+                GGML_ASSERT(false); // TODO: not implemented
+            } break;
         case GGML_OP_ADD:
             {
                 if (src0->grad) {
@@ -17058,6 +17151,8 @@ void ggml_graph_compute(struct ggml_context * ctx, struct ggml_cgraph * cgraph)
                     {
                         node->n_tasks = 1;
                     } break;
+                case GGML_OP_SEND:
+                case GGML_OP_RECV:
                 case GGML_OP_SET:
                 case GGML_OP_CONT:
                 case GGML_OP_RESHAPE:
diff --git a/ggml.h b/ggml.h
index 11b51f8bd..aa78f17dd 100644
--- a/ggml.h
+++ b/ggml.h
@@ -353,6 +353,9 @@ extern "C" {
         GGML_OP_CROSS_ENTROPY_LOSS_BACK,
 
         GGML_OP_COUNT,
+
+        GGML_OP_SEND,
+        GGML_OP_RECV,
     };
 
 
@@ -556,6 +559,16 @@ extern "C" {
     GGML_API struct ggml_tensor * ggml_dup_tensor (struct ggml_context * ctx, const struct ggml_tensor * src);
     GGML_API struct ggml_tensor * ggml_view_tensor(struct ggml_context * ctx, const struct ggml_tensor * src);
 
+    GGML_API struct ggml_tensor * ggml_send_tensor(
+            struct ggml_context * ctx,
+            const struct ggml_tensor *src,
+            int dst_rank);
+    GGML_API struct ggml_tensor * ggml_recv_tensor(
+            struct ggml_context * ctx,
+            const struct ggml_tensor *parent,
+            struct ggml_tensor *dst,
+            int src_rank);
+
     GGML_API struct ggml_tensor * ggml_get_tensor(struct ggml_context * ctx, const char * name);
 
     GGML_API struct ggml_tensor * ggml_set_zero(struct ggml_tensor * tensor);
diff --git a/llama.cpp b/llama.cpp
index a869bbac8..c7de0bc60 100644
--- a/llama.cpp
+++ b/llama.cpp
@@ -49,6 +49,8 @@
 #include <sstream>
 #include <numeric>
 
+#include <mpi.h>
+
 #if defined(_MSC_VER)
 #pragma warning(disable: 4244 4267) // possible loss of data
 #endif
@@ -330,6 +332,9 @@ struct llama_context {
     ggml_metal_context * ctx_metal = NULL;
 #endif
 
+    int    mpi_rank;
+    int    mpi_size;
+
     int    buf_last = 0;
     size_t buf_max_size[LLAMA_MAX_SCRATCH_BUFFERS] = { 0 };
 
@@ -864,6 +869,15 @@ void llama_init_backend(bool numa) {
     if (numa) {
         ggml_numa_init();
     }
+#ifdef GGML_USE_MPI
+    MPI_Init(NULL, NULL);
+#endif
+}
+
+void llama_finalize_backend() {
+#ifdef GGML_USE_MPI
+    MPI_Finalize();
+#endif
 }
 
 int64_t llama_time_us() {
@@ -1307,7 +1321,16 @@ static bool llama_eval_internal(
     struct ggml_tensor * cur;
     struct ggml_tensor * inpL;
 
-    if (tokens) {
+    if (lctx.mpi_rank > 0) {
+#ifdef GGML_USE_MPI
+        inpL = ggml_recv_tensor(ctx0, NULL,
+                ggml_new_tensor_2d(ctx0, GGML_TYPE_F32, n_embd, N),
+                lctx.mpi_rank-1);
+        ggml_set_name(inpL, "recv");
+#else
+        GGML_ASSERT(false);
+#endif
+    } else if (tokens) {
         struct ggml_tensor * embd = ggml_new_tensor_1d(ctx0, GGML_TYPE_I32, N);
         ggml_set_name(embd, "embd");
         memcpy(embd->data, tokens, N*ggml_element_size(embd));
@@ -1341,7 +1364,9 @@ static bool llama_eval_internal(
         }
 #endif // GGML_USE_CUBLAS
 
-    for (int il = 0; il < n_layer; ++il) {
+    // EMM TODO distribute work more evenly - maybe rank=0 gets the smallest amount?
+    int slice_size = (n_layer + (lctx.mpi_size - 1)) / lctx.mpi_size;
+    for (int il = lctx.mpi_rank * slice_size; il < n_layer && il < (lctx.mpi_rank + 1) * slice_size; ++il) {
         offload_func_t offload_func = llama_nop;
 
 #ifdef GGML_USE_CUBLAS
@@ -1556,26 +1581,37 @@ static bool llama_eval_internal(
     // used at the end to optionally extract the embeddings
     struct ggml_tensor * embeddings = NULL;
 
+#ifdef GGML_USE_MPI
+    cur = ggml_send_tensor(ctx0, cur, (lctx.mpi_rank+1)%lctx.mpi_size);
+    ggml_set_name(cur, "send");
+#endif
+    if (lctx.mpi_rank == 0) {
+#ifdef GGML_USE_MPI
+        cur = ggml_recv_tensor(ctx0, cur,
+                ggml_new_tensor_2d(ctx0, GGML_TYPE_F32, n_embd, N),
+                lctx.mpi_size-1);
+        ggml_set_name(cur, "recv");
+#endif
+        // norm
+        {
+            cur = ggml_rms_norm(ctx0, cur);
+            offload_func_nr(cur);
+            ggml_set_name(cur, "rms_norm_2");
 
-    // norm
-    {
-        cur = ggml_rms_norm(ctx0, inpL);
-        offload_func_nr(cur);
-        ggml_set_name(cur, "rms_norm_2");
+            // cur = cur*norm(broadcasted)
+            cur = ggml_mul(ctx0, cur, model.norm);
+            // offload_func_nr(cur); // TODO CPU + GPU mirrored backend
+            ggml_set_name(cur, "result_norm");
 
-        // cur = cur*norm(broadcasted)
-        cur = ggml_mul(ctx0, cur, model.norm);
-        // offload_func_nr(cur); // TODO CPU + GPU mirrored backend
-        ggml_set_name(cur, "result_norm");
+            embeddings = cur;
+        }
 
-        embeddings = cur;
+
+        // lm_head
+        cur = ggml_mul_mat(ctx0, model.output, cur);
+        ggml_set_name(cur, "result_output");
     }
 
-
-    // lm_head
-    cur = ggml_mul_mat(ctx0, model.output, cur);
-    ggml_set_name(cur, "result_output");
-
     lctx.use_buf(ctx0, -1);
 
     // logits -> probs
@@ -1632,26 +1668,28 @@ static bool llama_eval_internal(
     // update kv token count
     lctx.kv_self.n = n_past + N;
 
-    // extract logits
-    {
-        auto & logits_out = lctx.logits;
+    if (lctx.mpi_rank == 0) {
+        // extract logits
+        {
+            auto & logits_out = lctx.logits;
 
-        if (lctx.logits_all) {
-            logits_out.resize(n_vocab * N);
-            memcpy(logits_out.data(), (float *) ggml_get_data(cur), sizeof(float)*n_vocab*N);
-        } else {
-            // return result for just the last token
-            logits_out.resize(n_vocab);
-            memcpy(logits_out.data(), (float *) ggml_get_data(cur) + (n_vocab*(N-1)), sizeof(float)*n_vocab);
+            if (lctx.logits_all) {
+                logits_out.resize(n_vocab * N);
+                memcpy(logits_out.data(), (float *) ggml_get_data(cur), sizeof(float)*n_vocab*N);
+            } else {
+                // return result for just the last token
+                logits_out.resize(n_vocab);
+                memcpy(logits_out.data(), (float *) ggml_get_data(cur) + (n_vocab*(N-1)), sizeof(float)*n_vocab);
+            }
         }
-    }
 
-    // extract embeddings
-    if (!lctx.embedding.empty()) {
-        auto & embedding_out = lctx.embedding;
+        // extract embeddings
+        if (!lctx.embedding.empty()) {
+            auto & embedding_out = lctx.embedding;
 
-        embedding_out.resize(n_embd);
-        memcpy(embedding_out.data(), (float *) ggml_get_data(embeddings) + (n_embd*(N - 1)), sizeof(float)*n_embd);
+            embedding_out.resize(n_embd);
+            memcpy(embedding_out.data(), (float *) ggml_get_data(embeddings) + (n_embd*(N - 1)), sizeof(float)*n_embd);
+        }
     }
 
     if (mem_per_token == 0) {
@@ -2603,6 +2641,14 @@ struct llama_context * llama_new_context_with_model(
     ctx->rng = std::mt19937(params.seed);
     ctx->logits_all = params.logits_all;
 
+#ifdef GGML_USE_MPI
+    MPI_Comm_size(MPI_COMM_WORLD, &ctx->mpi_size);
+    MPI_Comm_rank(MPI_COMM_WORLD, &ctx->mpi_rank);
+#else
+    ctx->mpi_size = 1;
+    ctx->mpi_rank = 0;
+#endif
+
     ggml_type memory_type = params.f16_kv ? GGML_TYPE_F16 : GGML_TYPE_F32;
 
     // reserve memory for context buffers
@@ -2675,6 +2721,16 @@ struct llama_context * llama_new_context_with_model(
     }
 #endif
 
+    if (ctx->mpi_rank > 0) {
+        // Enter a blocking eval loop with dummy input, letting rank=0 drive the process
+        const std::vector<llama_token> tmp = { llama_token_bos(), };
+        while (!llama_eval(ctx, tmp.data(), tmp.size(), 0, 0));
+#ifdef GGML_USE_MPI
+        MPI_Finalize();
+#endif
+        exit(1);
+    }
+
     return ctx;
 }
 
@@ -3351,6 +3407,13 @@ int llama_eval(
                          int   n_tokens,
                          int   n_past,
                          int   n_threads) {
+#ifdef GGML_USE_MPI
+    // Synchronize the worker node parameters with the root node
+    MPI_Barrier(MPI_COMM_WORLD);
+    MPI_Bcast(&n_past, 1, MPI_INT, 0, MPI_COMM_WORLD);
+    MPI_Bcast(&n_tokens, 1, MPI_INT, 0, MPI_COMM_WORLD);
+    MPI_Bcast(&n_threads, 1, MPI_INT, 0, MPI_COMM_WORLD);
+#endif
     if (!llama_eval_internal(*ctx, tokens, nullptr, n_tokens, n_past, n_threads, nullptr)) {
         fprintf(stderr, "%s: failed to eval\n", __func__);
         return 1;
@@ -3434,6 +3497,14 @@ int llama_n_embd(const struct llama_context * ctx) {
     return ctx->model.hparams.n_embd;
 }
 
+int llama_mpi_rank(const struct llama_context * ctx) {
+    return ctx->mpi_rank;
+}
+
+int llama_mpi_size(const struct llama_context * ctx) {
+    return ctx->mpi_size;
+}
+
 int llama_get_vocab(
         const struct llama_context * ctx,
         const char * * strings,
diff --git a/llama.h b/llama.h
index 5bb1964bd..1920584c5 100644
--- a/llama.h
+++ b/llama.h
@@ -145,6 +145,8 @@ extern "C" {
     // If numa is true, use NUMA optimizations
     // Call once at the start of the program
     LLAMA_API void llama_init_backend(bool numa);
+    // Call once at the end of the program - currently only used for MPI
+    LLAMA_API void llama_finalize_backend();
 
     LLAMA_API int64_t llama_time_us();
 
@@ -257,6 +259,8 @@ extern "C" {
     LLAMA_API int llama_n_vocab(const struct llama_context * ctx);
     LLAMA_API int llama_n_ctx  (const struct llama_context * ctx);
     LLAMA_API int llama_n_embd (const struct llama_context * ctx);
+    LLAMA_API int llama_mpi_rank (const struct llama_context * ctx);
+    LLAMA_API int llama_mpi_size (const struct llama_context * ctx);
 
     // Get the vocabulary as output parameters.
     // Returns number of results.