diff --git a/tests/conftest.py b/tests/conftest.py
index 822d08e21675..f3ee0ccb3d47 100644
--- a/tests/conftest.py
+++ b/tests/conftest.py
@@ -74,6 +74,27 @@
 from torch._inductor.utils import fresh_cache
 
 
+# This function will load AITER function pointers and make them
+# available for vllm tests.
+def load_aiter_ops_if_available():
+    from vllm.platforms import current_platform
+    from importlib.util import find_spec
+
+    # NOTE: it's not possible to use vllm._aiter_ops.is_aiter_found
+    # because the aiter ops won't load and all tests that want
+    # to use aiter will fail because no aiter ops will be loaded.
+    if current_platform.is_rocm() and find_spec("aiter") is not None:
+        os.environ["VLLM_ROCM_USE_AITER"] = "1"
+        # Load the ops so they can be used by tests that need them.
+        import vllm._aiter_ops
+
+        # Unset the environment variable, so tests that need this variable
+        # to be unset will function properly.
+        os.environ["VLLM_ROCM_USE_AITER"] = "0"
+
+
+load_aiter_ops_if_available()
+
 if TYPE_CHECKING:
     from transformers import PreTrainedTokenizer, PreTrainedTokenizerFast
     from transformers.generation.utils import GenerateOutput
diff --git a/tests/kernels/moe/test_rocm_aiter_topk.py b/tests/kernels/moe/test_rocm_aiter_topk.py
index 070d00f61120..b0ecc9ed71f6 100644
--- a/tests/kernels/moe/test_rocm_aiter_topk.py
+++ b/tests/kernels/moe/test_rocm_aiter_topk.py
@@ -10,7 +10,6 @@
 # and the platform is not ROCm.
 
 import importlib.util
-import os
 
 import pytest
 import torch
@@ -20,9 +19,6 @@
 if not current_platform.is_rocm():
     pytest.skip("This test can only run on ROCm.", allow_module_level=True)
 
-# This environment variable must be set so ops will be registered.
-os.environ["VLLM_ROCM_USE_AITER"] = "1"
-
 # this import statement is needed to ensure the ops are registered
 import vllm.model_executor.layers.fused_moe.rocm_aiter_fused_moe  # noqa: F401
 
diff --git a/vllm/config/vllm.py b/vllm/config/vllm.py
index 0f499c39ead3..69879cbc78cd 100644
--- a/vllm/config/vllm.py
+++ b/vllm/config/vllm.py
@@ -109,6 +109,7 @@ def enable_norm_pad_fusion(cfg: "VllmConfig") -> bool:
         envs.VLLM_ROCM_USE_AITER
         and envs.VLLM_ROCM_USE_AITER_RMSNORM
         and envs.VLLM_ROCM_USE_AITER_TRITON_GEMM
+        and cfg.model_config is not None
         and cfg.model_config.get_hidden_size() == 2880
     )