diff --git a/ggml/src/ggml-sycl/ggml-sycl.cpp b/ggml/src/ggml-sycl/ggml-sycl.cpp
index 92c26839f..c7434a6bd 100644
--- a/ggml/src/ggml-sycl/ggml-sycl.cpp
+++ b/ggml/src/ggml-sycl/ggml-sycl.cpp
@@ -109,7 +109,14 @@ int g_ggml_sycl_enable_host_pinned_mem = 1;
 static ggml_sycl_device_info ggml_sycl_init() {
     ggml_sycl_device_info info = {};
 
-    info.device_count = dpct::dev_mgr::instance().device_count();
+    // Do not hard crash when there exists no SYCL devices.
+    // We want to allow the user to use non-SYCL tools when SYCL is compiled (such as llama-quantize)
+    try {
+        info.device_count = dpct::dev_mgr::instance().device_count();
+    } catch (sycl::exception const &exc) {
+        GGML_LOG_INFO("%s: no SYCL device available: %s\n", __func__, exc.what());
+        info.device_count = 0;
+    }
     if (info.device_count == 0) {
         GGML_LOG_ERROR("%s: failed to initialize: %s\n", GGML_SYCL_NAME, __func__);
         return info;