diff --git a/llmfoundry/models/utils/tp_strategy.py b/llmfoundry/models/utils/tp_strategy.py
index f7929686c6..748ccf0c55 100644
--- a/llmfoundry/models/utils/tp_strategy.py
+++ b/llmfoundry/models/utils/tp_strategy.py
@@ -19,7 +19,10 @@ def ffn_tp_strategy(model: ComposerModel) -> dict[str, ParallelStyle]:
         layer for layer in TP_LAYERS for name, _ in model.named_modules()
         if layer in name
     }
-    assert tp_layers_in_model == TP_LAYERS, f'The FFN tensor parallelism strategy requires `model` to have layers {TP_LAYERS}. But `model` is missing layers {TP_LAYERS - tp_layers_in_model}.'
+    if tp_layers_in_model != TP_LAYERS:
+        raise RuntimeError(
+            f'The FFN tensor parallelism strategy requires `model` to have layers {TP_LAYERS}. But `model` is missing layers {TP_LAYERS - tp_layers_in_model}.'
+        )
 
     # generate layer plan
     layer_plan: dict[str, ParallelStyle] = {}