diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index d88a299704525b..09d21d85f57cdc 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -25,7 +25,7 @@ The format is based on [Keep a Changelog](http://keepachangelog.com/en/1.0.0/).
 
 ### Changed
 
--
+- Raise exception in `init_dist_connection()` when torch distibuted is not available ([#10418](https://github.com/PyTorchLightning/pytorch-lightning/issues/10418))
 
 
 -
diff --git a/pytorch_lightning/utilities/distributed.py b/pytorch_lightning/utilities/distributed.py
index ef0f0b5ef3e97d..b99f5213d02d8e 100644
--- a/pytorch_lightning/utilities/distributed.py
+++ b/pytorch_lightning/utilities/distributed.py
@@ -381,7 +381,9 @@ def init_dist_connection(
     world_size = world_size if world_size is not None else cluster_environment.world_size()
     os.environ["MASTER_ADDR"] = cluster_environment.main_address
     os.environ["MASTER_PORT"] = str(cluster_environment.main_port)
-    if torch.distributed.is_available() and not torch.distributed.is_initialized():
+    if not torch.distributed.is_available():
+        raise RuntimeError("torch.distributed is not available. Cannot initialize distributed process group")
+    if not torch.distributed.is_initialized():
         log.info(f"initializing distributed: GLOBAL_RANK: {global_rank}, MEMBER: {global_rank + 1}/{world_size}")
         torch.distributed.init_process_group(
             torch_distributed_backend, rank=global_rank, world_size=world_size, **kwargs