diff --git a/nanochat/common.py b/nanochat/common.py
index 9bcd5dd1..ea609b28 100644
--- a/nanochat/common.py
+++ b/nanochat/common.py
@@ -4,6 +4,8 @@ Common utilities for nanochat.
 
 import os
 import re
+import sys
+import platform
 import logging
 import urllib.request
 import torch
@@ -150,6 +152,39 @@ def autodetect_device_type():
     print0(f"Autodetected device type: {device_type}")
     return device_type
 
+def is_mps_device(device):
+    """Check if device is MPS (Apple Metal Performance Shaders)."""
+    if isinstance(device, str):
+        return device == "mps"
+    return hasattr(device, 'type') and device.type == "mps"
+
+def should_use_torch_compile(device):
+    """
+    Determine if torch.compile should be used based on device type and platform.
+    torch.compile hangs indefinitely on MPS devices (macOS).
+    Reference: https://github.com/karpathy/nanochat/pull/319
+    """
+    # Check if running on macOS with MPS device
+    is_macos = platform.system() == "Darwin"
+    is_mps = is_mps_device(device)
+
+    if is_macos and is_mps:
+        logger.warning("=" * 80)
+        logger.warning("WARNING: torch.compile is disabled on macOS with MPS (Apple Metal)")
+        logger.warning("Platform: macOS (Darwin)")
+        logger.warning("Device: MPS (Metal Performance Shaders)")
+        logger.warning("Reason: torch.compile hangs indefinitely on MPS devices")
+        logger.warning("Reference: https://github.com/karpathy/nanochat/pull/319")
+        logger.warning("Using eager mode instead (no performance impact on evaluation)")
+        logger.warning("=" * 80)
+        return False
+    elif is_mps and not is_macos:
+        # MPS on non-macOS platform (shouldn't happen, but be defensive)
+        logger.warning("WARNING: MPS device detected on non-macOS platform - disabling torch.compile")
+        return False
+
+    return True
+
 def compute_init(device_type="cuda"): # cuda|cpu|mps
     """Basic initialization that we keep doing over and over, so make common."""
 
diff --git a/scripts/base_train.py b/scripts/base_train.py
index ccf35e64..2dbd00ca 100644
--- a/scripts/base_train.py
+++ b/scripts/base_train.py
@@ -26,7 +26,7 @@ import torch
 
 from nanochat.gpt import GPT, GPTConfig
 from nanochat.dataloader import tokenizing_distributed_data_loader_bos_bestfit, tokenizing_distributed_data_loader_with_state_bos_bestfit
-from nanochat.common import compute_init, compute_cleanup, print0, DummyWandb, print_banner, get_base_dir, autodetect_device_type, get_peak_flops
+from nanochat.common import compute_init, compute_cleanup, print0, DummyWandb, print_banner, get_base_dir, autodetect_device_type, get_peak_flops, should_use_torch_compile
 from nanochat.tokenizer import get_tokenizer, get_token_bytes
 from nanochat.checkpoint_manager import save_checkpoint, load_checkpoint
 from nanochat.loss_eval import evaluate_bpb
@@ -234,7 +234,11 @@ def disable_fp8(model):
 # Compile the model
 
 orig_model = model # original, uncompiled model, for saving raw model state_dict and for inference/evaluation (because the shapes may change shape)
-model = torch.compile(model, dynamic=False) # the inputs to model will never change shape so dynamic=False is safe
+if should_use_torch_compile(device):
+    model = torch.compile(model, dynamic=False) # the inputs to model will never change shape so dynamic=False is safe
+else:
+    # Skip compilation on MPS (hangs indefinitely)
+    pass
 
 # -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 # Scaling laws and muP extrapolations to determine the optimal training horizon, batch size, learning rates, weight decay.
diff --git a/scripts/chat_sft.py b/scripts/chat_sft.py
index 4c81f065..891ec89a 100644
--- a/scripts/chat_sft.py
+++ b/scripts/chat_sft.py
@@ -16,7 +16,7 @@ import time
 import wandb
 import torch
 from contextlib import nullcontext
-from nanochat.common import compute_init, compute_cleanup, print0, DummyWandb, get_base_dir, autodetect_device_type
+from nanochat.common import compute_init, compute_cleanup, print0, DummyWandb, get_base_dir, autodetect_device_type, should_use_torch_compile
 from nanochat.tokenizer import get_token_bytes
 from nanochat.checkpoint_manager import save_checkpoint
 from nanochat.loss_eval import evaluate_bpb
@@ -81,7 +81,11 @@ pretrain_batch_size = meta.get("device_batch_size", None)
 if pretrain_batch_size is not None and args.device_batch_size > pretrain_batch_size:
     print0(f"FOOTGUN WARNING: base model training used device_batch_size {pretrain_batch_size}, did you pass in a good --device-batch-size to this script?")
 orig_model = model
-model = torch.compile(model, dynamic=False)
+if should_use_torch_compile(device):
+    model = torch.compile(model, dynamic=False)
+else:
+    # Skip compilation on MPS (hangs indefinitely)
+    pass
 depth = model.config.n_layer
 num_flops_per_token = model.estimate_flops()
 tokens_per_fwdbwd = args.device_batch_size * args.max_seq_len # tokens per iteration for a single rank