diff --git a/deepspeed/module_inject/containers/bloom.py b/deepspeed/module_inject/containers/bloom.py
index a78ac8120346..7a9b9ca2065b 100644
--- a/deepspeed/module_inject/containers/bloom.py
+++ b/deepspeed/module_inject/containers/bloom.py
@@ -19,6 +19,18 @@
 class DS_BloomContainer(MetaTensorContainer, HybridEngineContainer, BaseTransformerContainer):
 
     def __init__(self, **kwargs):
+        # Check transformers version, error if > 4.43.4 (breaks at 4.44.0)
+        from importlib.metadata import version
+        v_transformers = version('transformers')
+        vers = v_transformers.split('.')
+        major = int(vers[0])
+        minor = int(vers[1])
+        if major > 4 or (major == 4 and minor > 43):
+            import sys
+            sys.exit(
+                f"Transformers version {v_transformers} exceeds version 4.43.4! After transformers version 4.43.4, BLOOM inference with DeepSpeed is no longer supported."
+            )
+
         super().__init__(**kwargs)
 
         # All model specific things should be defined here instead of the base class.