An apparatus and method for compressing ray tracing data prior to transmission between nodes. For example, one embodiment of an apparatus comprises: a first node comprising a first ray tracing engine, the first node communicatively coupled to a second node comprising a second ray tracing engine; first compression circuitry coupled to the first ray tracing engine, the first compression circuitry to perform compression on ray tracing data of the first ray tracing engine to produce a first compressed stream of ray tracing data; and interface circuitry to transmit the first compressed stream of ray tracing data from the first node to the second node.