diff --git a/tests/unit/common.py b/tests/unit/common.py
index c002aa372c8c..1fd83de81f02 100644
--- a/tests/unit/common.py
+++ b/tests/unit/common.py
@@ -23,7 +23,7 @@
 from _pytest.fixtures import FixtureLookupError, FixtureFunctionMarker
 
 # Worker timeout for tests that hang
-DEEPSPEED_TEST_TIMEOUT = 600
+DEEPSPEED_TEST_TIMEOUT = int(os.environ.get('DS_UNITTEST_TIMEOUT', '600'))
 
 
 def is_rocm_pytorch():
@@ -81,6 +81,11 @@ def set_accelerator_visible():
                 match = re.search('Device Type.*GPU', line)
                 if match:
                     num_accelerators += 1
+        elif get_accelerator().device_name() == 'hpu':
+            hl_smi = subprocess.check_output(['hl-smi', "-L"])
+            num_accelerators = re.findall(r"Module ID\s+:\s+(\d+)", hl_smi.decode())
+            num_accelerators = sorted(num_accelerators, key=int)
+            os.environ["HABANA_VISIBLE_MODULES"] = ",".join(num_accelerators)
         elif get_accelerator().device_name() == 'npu':
             npu_smi = subprocess.check_output(['npu-smi', 'info', '-l'])
             num_accelerators = int(npu_smi.decode('utf-8').strip().split('\n')[0].split(':')[1].strip())
@@ -90,7 +95,10 @@ def set_accelerator_visible():
                 subprocess.check_output('cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep "physical id" | sort -u | wc -l', shell=True))
             num_accelerators = cpu_sockets
 
-        cuda_visible = ",".join(map(str, range(num_accelerators)))
+        if isinstance(num_accelerators, list):
+            cuda_visible = ",".join(num_accelerators)
+        else:
+            cuda_visible = ",".join(map(str, range(num_accelerators)))
 
     # rotate list based on xdist worker id, example below
     # wid=0 -> ['0', '1', '2', '3']
@@ -149,6 +157,12 @@ def _get_fixture_kwargs(self, request, func):
     def _launch_daemonic_procs(self, num_procs):
         # Create process pool or use cached one
         master_port = None
+
+        if get_accelerator().device_name() == 'hpu':
+            if self.reuse_dist_env:
+                print("Ignoring reuse_dist_env for hpu")
+                self.reuse_dist_env = False
+
         if self.reuse_dist_env:
             if num_procs not in self._pool_cache:
                 self._pool_cache[num_procs] = mp.Pool(processes=num_procs)
@@ -169,9 +183,10 @@ def _launch_daemonic_procs(self, num_procs):
             # usually means an environment error and the rest of tests will
             # hang (causing super long unit test runtimes)
             pytest.exit("Test hanged, exiting", returncode=1)
-
-        # Tear down distributed environment and close process pools
-        self._close_pool(pool, num_procs)
+        finally:
+            # Regardless of the outcome, ensure proper teardown
+            # Tear down distributed environment and close process pools
+            self._close_pool(pool, num_procs)
 
         # If we skipped a test, propagate that to this process
         if any(skip_msgs):