diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 72aa5cfcbd..797569f711 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -36,6 +36,9 @@ The format is based on [Keep a Changelog](http://keepachangelog.com/en/1.0.0/).
     [#4439](https://github.com/PyTorchLightning/pytorch-lightning/pull/4439))
 
 
+- Added ability for DDP plugin to modify optimizer state saving ([#4675](https://github.com/PyTorchLightning/pytorch-lightning/pull/4675))
+
+
 ### Changed
 
 - Tuner algorithms will be skipped if `fast_dev_run=True` ([#3903](https://github.com/PyTorchLightning/pytorch-lightning/pull/3903))
diff --git a/pytorch_lightning/accelerators/accelerator.py b/pytorch_lightning/accelerators/accelerator.py
index e765c2ab62..f2751cc2da 100644
--- a/pytorch_lightning/accelerators/accelerator.py
+++ b/pytorch_lightning/accelerators/accelerator.py
@@ -13,7 +13,7 @@
 # limitations under the License.
 import os
 from enum import Enum
-from typing import Any, Optional, Union
+from typing import Any, Optional, Union, List
 
 import torch
 from torch.optim import Optimizer
@@ -202,6 +202,17 @@ class Accelerator(object):
         """
         raise NotImplementedError()
 
+    def optimizer_state(self, optimizer: Optimizer) -> dict:
+        """
+        Returns state of an optimizer. Allows for syncing/collating optimizer state from processes in custom
+        plugins.
+        Return:
+            Optimizer state dict
+        """
+        if self.ddp_plugin:
+            return self.ddp_plugin.optimizer_state(optimizer)
+        return optimizer.state_dict()
+
     def __getstate__(self):
         return {
             'trainer': self.trainer,
diff --git a/pytorch_lightning/plugins/ddp_plugin.py b/pytorch_lightning/plugins/ddp_plugin.py
index 4d73d4bdde..8afb80cd67 100644
--- a/pytorch_lightning/plugins/ddp_plugin.py
+++ b/pytorch_lightning/plugins/ddp_plugin.py
@@ -1,5 +1,7 @@
 from typing import List, Dict, Any
 
+from torch.optim import Optimizer
+
 from pytorch_lightning.core.lightning import LightningModule
 from pytorch_lightning.overrides.data_parallel import LightningDistributedDataParallel
 
@@ -80,3 +82,6 @@ class DDPPlugin(object):
         Returns: args moved to correct device if needed.
         """
         return args
+
+    def optimizer_state(self, optimizer: Optimizer) -> dict:
+        return optimizer.state_dict()
diff --git a/pytorch_lightning/trainer/connectors/checkpoint_connector.py b/pytorch_lightning/trainer/connectors/checkpoint_connector.py
index 3b44ce96c0..d98a3137be 100644
--- a/pytorch_lightning/trainer/connectors/checkpoint_connector.py
+++ b/pytorch_lightning/trainer/connectors/checkpoint_connector.py
@@ -298,10 +298,12 @@ class CheckpointConnector:
             callback_states = self.trainer.on_save_checkpoint()
             checkpoint['callbacks'] = callback_states
 
-            # dump optimizers
             optimizer_states = []
             for i, optimizer in enumerate(self.trainer.optimizers):
-                optimizer_states.append(optimizer.state_dict())
+                # Rely on accelerator to dump optimizer state
+                optimizer_state = self.trainer.accelerator_backend.optimizer_state(optimizer)
+                optimizer_states.append(optimizer_state)
+
             checkpoint['optimizer_states'] = optimizer_states
 
             # dump lr schedulers