diff --git a/spacy/cli/train.py b/spacy/cli/train.py
index f6e585edc..fde88d97c 100644
--- a/spacy/cli/train.py
+++ b/spacy/cli/train.py
@@ -156,7 +156,7 @@ def train_cli(
         with init_tok2vec.open("rb") as file_:
             weights_data = file_.read()
 
-    if num_workers and num_workers > 1:
+    if num_workers and num_workers >= 1:
         from _ray_async_utils import distributed_setup_and_train
         distributed_setup_and_train(
             use_gpu,
@@ -172,6 +172,8 @@ def train_cli(
         )
     else:
         msg.info(f"Loading config from: {config_path}")
+        if use_gpu >= 0:
+            require_gpu(use_gpu)
         nlp, config = load_nlp_and_config(config_path)
         corpus = Corpus(train_path, dev_path, limit=config["training"]["limit"])