diff --git a/.travis.yml b/.travis.yml
index f039ae3..39013c3 100644
--- a/.travis.yml
+++ b/.travis.yml
@@ -64,6 +64,7 @@ install:
 
 # command to run tests
 script:
+  - export MKL_THREADING_LAYER="GNU"
   # run keras backend init to initialize backend config
   - python -c "import keras.backend"
   # create dataset directory to avoid concurrent directory creation at runtime