diff --git a/.buildkite/autogenerate_pipeline.py b/.buildkite/autogenerate_pipeline.py
index b82f7f9..4a29d7c 100755
--- a/.buildkite/autogenerate_pipeline.py
+++ b/.buildkite/autogenerate_pipeline.py
@@ -69,6 +69,14 @@ AARCH64_AGENT_TAGS = os.getenv('AARCH64_LINUX_AGENT_TAGS')
 DOCKER_PLUGIN_CONFIG = os.getenv('DOCKER_PLUGIN_CONFIG')
 TESTS_TO_SKIP = os.getenv('TESTS_TO_SKIP')
 TIMEOUTS_MIN = os.getenv('TIMEOUTS_MIN')
+# This env allows setting the hypervisor on which the tests are running at the
+# pipeline level. This will not override the hypervisor tag in case one is
+# already specified in the test definition.
+# Most of the repositories don't really need to run on KVM per se, but we are
+# experiencing some timeouts mostly with the mshv hosts right now, and we are
+# fixing the default to kvm to work around that problem.
+# More details here: https://github.com/rust-vmm/community/issues/137
+DEFAULT_AGENT_TAG_HYPERVISOR = os.getenv('DEFAULT_AGENT_TAG_HYPERVISOR', 'kvm')
 
 PARENT_DIR = pathlib.Path(__file__).parent.resolve()
 
@@ -298,6 +306,8 @@ class BuildkiteConfig:
             for platform in platforms:
                 step_input = copy.deepcopy(test)
                 step_input['platform'] = platform
+                if not step_input.get('hypervisor'):
+                    step_input['hypervisor'] = DEFAULT_AGENT_TAG_HYPERVISOR
 
                 step = BuildkiteStep()
                 step_output = step.build(step_input)
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 9086a72..b457525 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -74,6 +74,12 @@ variables.
   https://github.com/buildkite-plugins/docker-buildkite-plugin.
 - `TESTS_TO_SKIP`: specifies a list of tests to be skipped.
 - `TIMEOUTS_MIN`: overrides the timeout value for specific tests.
+- `DEFAULT_AGENT_TAG_HYPERVISOR`: sets the hypervisor on which all the tests in
+  the pipeline run. By default, the selected hypervisor is KVM because the
+  hosts running KVM at the time of this change showed better performance and
+  experienced timeouts less often. NOTE: This will not override the hypervisor
+  defined at the test step level. If a test already defines a hypervisor tag
+  that will remain intact.
 
 The variable `TESTS_TO_SKIP` is specified as a JSON list with the names
 of the tests to be skipped. The variable `TIMEOUTS_MIN` is a dictionary where