diff --git a/onnxruntime/core/providers/tensorrt/tensorrt_execution_provider.cc b/onnxruntime/core/providers/tensorrt/tensorrt_execution_provider.cc
index f9145b925c..6710296f67 100644
--- a/onnxruntime/core/providers/tensorrt/tensorrt_execution_provider.cc
+++ b/onnxruntime/core/providers/tensorrt/tensorrt_execution_provider.cc
@@ -37,9 +37,19 @@
                           ? common::Status::OK() \
                           : ORT_MAKE_STATUS(ONNXRUNTIME, FAIL, "CUDA error executing ", #expr))
 
+namespace onnxruntime {
+TensorrtLogger& GetTensorrtLogger();
+}
+
 using namespace ONNX_NAMESPACE;
 using namespace ::onnxruntime::logging;
 namespace {
+#ifdef ORT_RUN_EXTERNAL_ONNX_TESTS
+// instantiate global unused builder object which keeps the TRT kernel library in memory
+// so that subsequent builders avoid the expensive load / unload process.
+auto const trt_builder_placeholder =
+    tensorrt_ptr::unique_pointer<nvinfer1::IBuilder>(nvinfer1::createInferBuilder(GetTensorrtLogger()));
+#endif
 // Check if cycle exists in the graph after partitioning
 bool FindCycleHelper(size_t i, const std::list<size_t>* adjacency_map, bool visited[], bool* st, std::vector<size_t>& cycles) {
   if (!visited[i]) {