diff --git a/vllm/attention/backends/pallas.py b/vllm/attention/backends/pallas.py
index c324d62d44d79..83fdef16ef5cb 100644
--- a/vllm/attention/backends/pallas.py
+++ b/vllm/attention/backends/pallas.py
@@ -124,7 +124,10 @@ def __init__(
 
         self.megacore_mode = None
         tpu_env = torch_xla.tpu.get_tpu_env()
-        tpu_type = tpu_env.get("TYPE") or tpu_env.get("ACCELERATOR_TYPE")
+        tpu_type = (tpu_env.get("ACCELERATOR_TYPE", None)
+                    or tpu_env.get("TYPE", None)
+                    or tpu_env.get("TPU_ACCELERATOR_TYPE", None))
+        assert tpu_type is not None
         tpu_type = tpu_type.lower()
 
         if "lite" not in tpu_type: