diff --git a/.github/workflows/ci-pip-install-and-test-cpu.yml b/.github/workflows/ci-pip-install-and-test-cpu.yml
index 8f11cadb..7bb04063 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/ci-pip-install-and-test-cpu.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/ci-pip-install-and-test-cpu.yml
@@ -15,7 +15,10 @@ jobs:
 
       - name: Install torch (CPU)
         run: |
-          python -m pip install torch  --index-url https://download.pytorch.org/whl/cpu
+          # torch version pinned to 2.5.1 for now so that we avoid the
+          # downgrade (and then GPU version install) when actually installing
+          # neural-lam
+          python -m pip install "torch==2.5.1"  --index-url https://download.pytorch.org/whl/cpu
 
       - name: Install package (including dev dependencies)
         run: |