diff --git a/docs/changelog/100388.yaml b/docs/changelog/100388.yaml
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..0ff5228ef36d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/changelog/100388.yaml
@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+pr: 100388
+summary: Fix for inference requests being sent to every node with a model allocation. 
+If there are more nodes than items in the original request then empty requests were sent. 
+area: Machine Learning
+type: bug
+issues:
+ - 100180
diff --git a/x-pack/plugin/core/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/xpack/core/ml/inference/assignment/TrainedModelAssignment.java b/x-pack/plugin/core/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/xpack/core/ml/inference/assignment/TrainedModelAssignment.java
index 3664e4f62026..96ac12035628 100644
--- a/x-pack/plugin/core/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/xpack/core/ml/inference/assignment/TrainedModelAssignment.java
+++ b/x-pack/plugin/core/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/xpack/core/ml/inference/assignment/TrainedModelAssignment.java
@@ -213,7 +213,9 @@ public List<Tuple<String, Integer>> selectRandomStartedNodesWeighedOnAllocations
 
             var nodeCounts = new ArrayList<Tuple<String, Integer>>();
             for (int i = 0; i < counts.length; i++) {
-                nodeCounts.add(new Tuple<>(nodeIds.get(i), counts[i]));
+                if (counts[i] > 0) {
+                    nodeCounts.add(new Tuple<>(nodeIds.get(i), counts[i]));
+                }
             }
             return nodeCounts;
         }
@@ -232,7 +234,10 @@ public List<Tuple<String, Integer>> selectRandomStartedNodesWeighedOnAllocations
 
         var nodeCounts = new ArrayList<Tuple<String, Integer>>();
         for (int i = 0; i < counts.length; i++) {
-            nodeCounts.add(new Tuple<>(nodeIds.get(i), counts[i]));
+            // filter out zero counts
+            if (counts[i] > 0) {
+                nodeCounts.add(new Tuple<>(nodeIds.get(i), counts[i]));
+            }
         }
         return nodeCounts;
     }
diff --git a/x-pack/plugin/core/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/xpack/core/ml/inference/results/ErrorInferenceResults.java b/x-pack/plugin/core/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/xpack/core/ml/inference/results/ErrorInferenceResults.java
index c3b3a8f7d88f..7785f8785a21 100644
--- a/x-pack/plugin/core/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/xpack/core/ml/inference/results/ErrorInferenceResults.java
+++ b/x-pack/plugin/core/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/xpack/core/ml/inference/results/ErrorInferenceResults.java
@@ -11,7 +11,6 @@
 import org.elasticsearch.common.io.stream.StreamInput;
 import org.elasticsearch.common.io.stream.StreamOutput;
 import org.elasticsearch.inference.InferenceResults;
-import org.elasticsearch.xcontent.ParseField;
 import org.elasticsearch.xcontent.XContentBuilder;
 
 import java.io.IOException;
@@ -22,7 +21,6 @@
 public class ErrorInferenceResults implements InferenceResults {
 
     public static final String NAME = "error";
-    public static final ParseField WARNING = new ParseField("error");
 
     private final Exception exception;
 
diff --git a/x-pack/plugin/core/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/xpack/core/ml/inference/assignment/TrainedModelAssignmentTests.java b/x-pack/plugin/core/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/xpack/core/ml/inference/assignment/TrainedModelAssignmentTests.java
index c85729b5a631..ca777be21b3b 100644
--- a/x-pack/plugin/core/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/xpack/core/ml/inference/assignment/TrainedModelAssignmentTests.java
+++ b/x-pack/plugin/core/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/xpack/core/ml/inference/assignment/TrainedModelAssignmentTests.java
@@ -182,6 +182,17 @@ public void testselectRandomStartedNodeWeighedOnAllocationsForNRequests_GivenSin
         assertThat(nodes.get(0), equalTo(new Tuple<>("node-1", 1)));
     }
 
+    public void testSingleRequestWith2Nodes() {
+        TrainedModelAssignment.Builder builder = TrainedModelAssignment.Builder.empty(randomTaskParams(5));
+        builder.addRoutingEntry("node-1", new RoutingInfo(1, 1, RoutingState.STARTED, ""));
+        builder.addRoutingEntry("node-2", new RoutingInfo(1, 1, RoutingState.STARTED, ""));
+        TrainedModelAssignment assignment = builder.build();
+
+        var nodes = assignment.selectRandomStartedNodesWeighedOnAllocationsForNRequests(1);
+        assertThat(nodes, hasSize(1));
+        assertEquals(nodes.get(0).v2(), Integer.valueOf(1));
+    }
+
     public void testSelectRandomStartedNodeWeighedOnAllocationsForNRequests_GivenMultipleStartedNodes() {
         TrainedModelAssignment.Builder builder = TrainedModelAssignment.Builder.empty(randomTaskParams(6));
         builder.addRoutingEntry("node-1", new RoutingInfo(1, 1, RoutingState.STARTED, ""));
diff --git a/x-pack/plugin/ml/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/xpack/ml/action/TransportInternalInferModelAction.java b/x-pack/plugin/ml/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/xpack/ml/action/TransportInternalInferModelAction.java
index bc25afba066b..2827967c42cd 100644
--- a/x-pack/plugin/ml/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/xpack/ml/action/TransportInternalInferModelAction.java
+++ b/x-pack/plugin/ml/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/xpack/ml/action/TransportInternalInferModelAction.java
@@ -354,17 +354,19 @@ private void sendResponse() {
                 } else {
                     for (int i = 0; i < results.length(); i++) {
                         var resultList = results.get(i);
-                        if (resultList != null) {
-                            for (var result : resultList) {
-                                if (result instanceof ErrorInferenceResults errorResult) {
-                                    // Any failure fails all requests
-                                    // TODO is this the correct behaviour for batched requests?
-                                    finalListener.onFailure(errorResult.getException());
-                                    return;
-                                }
+                        if (resultList == null) {
+                            continue;
+                        }
+
+                        for (var result : resultList) {
+                            if (result instanceof ErrorInferenceResults errorResult) {
+                                // Any failure fails all requests
+                                // TODO is this the correct behaviour for batched requests?
+                                finalListener.onFailure(errorResult.getException());
+                                return;
                             }
-                            responseBuilder.addInferenceResults(resultList);
                         }
+                        responseBuilder.addInferenceResults(resultList);
                     }
                     finalListener.onResponse(responseBuilder.build());
                 }
diff --git a/x-pack/qa/rolling-upgrade/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/upgrades/MLModelDeploymentsUpgradeIT.java b/x-pack/qa/rolling-upgrade/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/upgrades/MLModelDeploymentsUpgradeIT.java
index 4912bff3518f..b9fbf0b6b1f0 100644
--- a/x-pack/qa/rolling-upgrade/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/upgrades/MLModelDeploymentsUpgradeIT.java
+++ b/x-pack/qa/rolling-upgrade/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/upgrades/MLModelDeploymentsUpgradeIT.java
@@ -97,7 +97,6 @@ public void removeLogging() throws IOException {
         client().performRequest(request);
     }
 
-    @AwaitsFix(bugUrl = "https://github.com/elastic/elasticsearch/issues/100180")
     public void testTrainedModelDeployment() throws Exception {
         assumeTrue("NLP model deployments added in 8.0", UPGRADE_FROM_VERSION.onOrAfter(Version.V_8_0_0));