diff --git a/deepspeed/runtime/comm/nccl.py b/deepspeed/runtime/comm/nccl.py
index 0ac2646bd0d7..94ea2a19bed2 100644
--- a/deepspeed/runtime/comm/nccl.py
+++ b/deepspeed/runtime/comm/nccl.py
@@ -12,8 +12,12 @@
 
 
 class NcclBackend(object):
-    def __init__(self):
-        self.world_group = dist.new_group(ranks=range(dist.get_world_size()))
+    def __init__(self, mpu=None):
+        if mpu is None:
+            self.world_group = dist.new_group(ranks=range(dist.get_world_size()))
+        else:
+            self.mpu = mpu
+            self.world_group = self.mpu.get_data_parallel_group()
         self.rank = dist.get_rank(group=self.world_group)
         self.size = dist.get_world_size(group=self.world_group)
         self.compression_backend = CupyBackend()
@@ -92,9 +96,9 @@ def compressed_allreduce(self,
         # communication phase 1
         # gather_start = time.time()
         # Alltoall for sign
-        dist.all_to_all_single(recvbuf_sign, torch.stack(sign_list_packed))
+        dist.all_to_all_single(recvbuf_sign, torch.stack(sign_list_packed), group=self.world_group)
         # Allgather for scale
-        dist.all_gather(recvbuf_scale, worker_scale)
+        dist.all_gather(recvbuf_scale, worker_scale, group=self.world_group)
 
         # gather_end = time.time()
 
@@ -151,8 +155,8 @@ def compressed_allreduce(self,
         ]
 
         # Communication Phase 2
-        dist.all_gather(recvbuf_sign_server, server_sign_packed[0])
-        dist.all_gather(recvbuf_scale_server, server_scale)
+        dist.all_gather(recvbuf_sign_server, server_sign_packed[0], group=self.world_group)
+        dist.all_gather(recvbuf_scale_server, server_scale, group=self.world_group)
 
         cupy_server_sign_packed = None
 
diff --git a/deepspeed/runtime/fp16/onebit/adam.py b/deepspeed/runtime/fp16/onebit/adam.py
index e3417fea9d6f..a15565b12edd 100644
--- a/deepspeed/runtime/fp16/onebit/adam.py
+++ b/deepspeed/runtime/fp16/onebit/adam.py
@@ -94,7 +94,7 @@ def __init__(self,
             assert TORCH_MAJOR >= 1 and TORCH_MINOR >= 8, "Please use torch 1.8 or greater to enable NCCL backend in 1-bit Adam. Alternatively, please specify 'mpi' as the 'comm_backend_name' in config file to proceed with the MPI backend"
             assert dist.is_initialized() == True, "Please initialize the torch distributed backend."
             from deepspeed.runtime.comm.nccl import NcclBackend
-            self.comm_backend_handle = NcclBackend()
+            self.comm_backend_handle = NcclBackend(self.deepspeed.mpu)
 
         elif self.comm_backend_name == 'mpi':
             from deepspeed.runtime.comm.mpi import MpiBackend
@@ -254,8 +254,10 @@ def step(self, closure=None, grads=None):
 
         if self.adam_freeze_key is False:
             if state['step'] >= self.freeze_step:
+                print('OneBitAdam - starting compressed communication')
                 self.adam_freeze_key = True
                 self.deepspeed.enable_backward_allreduce = False
+                self.deepspeed.pipeline_enable_backward_allreduce = False
 
         return loss
 
@@ -281,6 +283,7 @@ def load_state_dict(self, state_dict):
             if self.adam_freeze_key is True:
                 self.adam_freeze_key = False
                 self.deepspeed.enable_backward_allreduce = True
+                self.deepspeed.pipeline_enable_backward_allreduce = True
         else:
             if torch.distributed.get_rank() == 0:
                 print(
diff --git a/deepspeed/runtime/pipe/engine.py b/deepspeed/runtime/pipe/engine.py
index 573dccce78a5..2c2196647bb4 100644
--- a/deepspeed/runtime/pipe/engine.py
+++ b/deepspeed/runtime/pipe/engine.py
@@ -54,6 +54,10 @@ def __init__(self, *super_args, **super_kwargs):
 
         # We schedule the all-reduces, so disable it in super().backward()
         self.enable_backward_allreduce = False
+
+        # used to disable the pipeline all-reduce when used with 1-bit adam
+        self.pipeline_enable_backward_allreduce = True
+
         assert not self.elasticity_enabled(), "Elasticity is not currently supported" \
             " with pipeline parallelism."
 
@@ -220,7 +224,7 @@ def _exec_reduce_tied_grads(self):
 
     def _exec_reduce_grads(self):
         self._force_grad_boundary = True
-        if self.is_data_parallel:
+        if self.is_data_parallel and self.pipeline_enable_backward_allreduce:
             self.buffered_allreduce_fallback(
                 elements_per_buffer=MEMORY_OPT_ALLREDUCE_SIZE)
         self._force_grad_boundary = False