diff --git a/benchmarks/CMakeLists.txt b/benchmarks/CMakeLists.txt
index 947aa693..0c127570 100644
--- a/benchmarks/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/benchmarks/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -42,8 +42,11 @@ endfunction()
 
 add_lcit_benchmarks(lcitb_pt2pt.cpp)
 
-find_package(MPI)
-if(MPI_FOUND)
-  add_lcit_benchmark(mpi_pt2pt.cpp)
-  target_link_libraries(mpi_pt2pt PRIVATE MPI::MPI_CXX)
+option(LCI_WITH_MPI_BENCHMARKS "Build MPI Benchmarks by default" ON)
+if(LCI_WITH_MPI_BENCHMARKS)
+  find_package(MPI)
+  if(MPI_FOUND)
+    add_lcit_benchmark(mpi_pt2pt.cpp)
+    target_link_libraries(mpi_pt2pt PRIVATE MPI::MPI_CXX)
+  endif()
 endif()
diff --git a/contrib/spack/packages/lci/package.py b/contrib/spack/packages/lci/package.py
index fd6c8cc8..de5cf2cd 100644
--- a/contrib/spack/packages/lci/package.py
+++ b/contrib/spack/packages/lci/package.py
@@ -80,6 +80,7 @@ def is_positive_int(val):
                 ('auto',), ('pmix', 'pmi2', 'pmi1', 'mpi', 'local'),
             ).prohibit_empty_set(
             ).with_default('auto').with_non_feature_values('auto'))
+    variant('mpi-benchmarks', default=False, description='Enable MPI benchmark', when="@1.7.8:")
 
     generator('ninja', 'make', default='ninja')
 
@@ -87,8 +88,8 @@ def is_positive_int(val):
     depends_on('libfabric', when='fabric=ofi')
     depends_on('rdma-core', when='fabric=ibv')
     depends_on('ucx', when='fabric=ucx')
-    depends_on('mpi', when='default-pm=mpi')
     depends_on('mpi', when='enable-pm=mpi')
+    depends_on('mpi', when='+mpi-benchmarks')
     depends_on('papi', when='+papi')
     depends_on('doxygen', when='+docs')
     depends_on('cray-mpich', when='platform=cray')
@@ -103,6 +104,7 @@ def cmake_args(self):
             self.define_from_variant('LCI_WITH_EXAMPLES', 'examples'),
             self.define_from_variant('LCI_WITH_TESTS', 'tests'),
             self.define_from_variant('LCI_WITH_BENCHMARKS', 'benchmarks'),
+            self.define_from_variant('LCI_WITH_MPI_BENCHMARKS', 'mpi-benchmarks'),
             self.define_from_variant('LCI_WITH_DOC', 'docs'),
             self.define_from_variant('LCI_USE_AVX', 'vector'),
             self.define_from_variant('LCI_CONFIG_USE_ALIGNED_ALLOC', 'aligned'),
diff --git a/lct/pmi/CMakeLists.txt b/lct/pmi/CMakeLists.txt
index f5448de2..821f4558 100644
--- a/lct/pmi/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/lct/pmi/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -35,10 +35,10 @@ if(LCT_PMI_BACKEND_ENABLE_PMI2)
   target_sources_relative(${LIBRARY_NAME} PRIVATE pmi_wrapper_pmi2.cpp)
 endif()
 
-find_package(MPI COMPONENTS CXX)
 option(LCT_PMI_BACKEND_ENABLE_MPI
-       "Enable MPI as the process management backend" ${MPI_FOUND})
+       "Enable MPI as the process management backend" OFF)
 if(LCT_PMI_BACKEND_ENABLE_MPI)
+  find_package(MPI COMPONENTS CXX)
   if(MPI_FOUND)
     target_sources_relative(${LIBRARY_NAME} PRIVATE pmi_wrapper_mpi.cpp)
     target_link_libraries(${LIBRARY_NAME} PRIVATE MPI::MPI_CXX)