diff --git a/news/3163.bugfix.md b/news/3163.bugfix.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..250403e587
--- /dev/null
+++ b/news/3163.bugfix.md
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Fallback version to 0.0.0 when the version is not specified or empty. This can avoid crash when building such project.
diff --git a/src/pdm/utils.py b/src/pdm/utils.py
index 6b62d671f8..ef2ca2935e 100644
--- a/src/pdm/utils.py
+++ b/src/pdm/utils.py
@@ -350,7 +350,7 @@ def normalize_name(name: str, lowercase: bool = True) -> str:
 
 def comparable_version(version: str) -> Version:
     """Normalize a version to make it valid in a specifier."""
-    parsed = parse_version(version)
+    parsed = parse_version(version or "0.0.0")
     if parsed.local is not None:
         # strip the local part
         parsed._version = parsed._version._replace(local=None)