diff --git a/src/lightning/fabric/utilities/distributed.py b/src/lightning/fabric/utilities/distributed.py
index ec4eb261f2d3e..500f3a3e2aa92 100644
--- a/src/lightning/fabric/utilities/distributed.py
+++ b/src/lightning/fabric/utilities/distributed.py
@@ -319,7 +319,11 @@ def _destroy_dist_connection() -> None:
 
 
 def _get_default_process_group_backend_for_device(device: torch.device) -> str:
-    return "nccl" if device.type == "cuda" else "gloo"
+    """Return corresponding distributed backend for a given device."""
+    device_backend_map = torch.distributed.Backend.default_device_backend_map
+    if device.type in device_backend_map:
+        return device_backend_map[device.type]
+    return "gloo"
 
 
 class _DatasetSamplerWrapper(Dataset):
diff --git a/tests/tests_fabric/utilities/test_distributed.py b/tests/tests_fabric/utilities/test_distributed.py
index d65eaa810ff4d..51c4b320d5525 100644
--- a/tests/tests_fabric/utilities/test_distributed.py
+++ b/tests/tests_fabric/utilities/test_distributed.py
@@ -17,6 +17,7 @@
 from lightning.fabric.utilities.distributed import (
     _destroy_dist_connection,
     _gather_all_tensors,
+    _get_default_process_group_backend_for_device,
     _InfiniteBarrier,
     _init_dist_connection,
     _is_dtensor,
@@ -243,6 +244,27 @@ def test_init_dist_connection_registers_destruction_handler(_, atexit_mock):
     atexit_mock.register.assert_not_called()
 
 
+def test_get_default_process_group_backend_for_device():
+    """Test that each device type maps to its correct default process group backend."""
+    # register a custom backend for test
+    torch.utils.rename_privateuse1_backend("pcu")
+
+    def mock_backend(store, group_rank, group_size, timeout):
+        pass
+
+    torch.distributed.Backend.register_backend(
+        "pccl",
+        lambda store, group_rank, group_size, timeout: mock_backend(store, group_rank, group_size, timeout),
+        devices=["pcu"],
+    )
+
+    # test that the default backend is correctly set for each device
+    devices = [torch.device("cpu"), torch.device("cuda:0"), torch.device("pcu:0")]
+    backends = ["gloo", "nccl", "pccl"]
+    for device, backend in zip(devices, backends):
+        assert _get_default_process_group_backend_for_device(device) == backend
+
+
 @RunIf(min_torch="2.4")
 def test_is_dtensor(monkeypatch):
     from torch.distributed._tensor import DTensor