diff --git a/aimodel/src/lib/dataset/dataset.py b/aimodel/src/lib/dataset/dataset.py
index ae5e387..49575b2 100644
--- a/aimodel/src/lib/dataset/dataset.py
+++ b/aimodel/src/lib/dataset/dataset.py
@@ -40,13 +40,15 @@ def parse_item(metadata):
 	return tf.function(parse_item_inner)
 
 def make_dataset(filenames, metadata, compression_type="GZIP", parallel_reads_multiplier=1.5, shuffle_buffer_size=128, batch_size=64):
+	if "NO_PREFETCH" in os.environ:
+		logger.info("disabling data prefetching.")
 	return tf.data.TFRecordDataset(filenames,
 		compression_type=compression_type,
 		num_parallel_reads=math.ceil(os.cpu_count() * parallel_reads_multiplier)
 	).shuffle(shuffle_buffer_size) \
 		.map(parse_item(metadata), num_parallel_calls=tf.data.AUTOTUNE) \
 		.batch(batch_size) \
-		.prefetch(tf.data.AUTOTUNE)
+		.prefetch(0 if "NO_PREFETCH" in os.environ else tf.data.AUTOTUNE)
 
 
 def dataset(dirpath_input, batch_size=64, train_percentage=0.8, parallel_reads_multiplier=1.5):