diff --git a/virtcontainers/qemu.go b/virtcontainers/qemu.go
index 95ae5c8260..54da515d3f 100644
--- a/virtcontainers/qemu.go
+++ b/virtcontainers/qemu.go
@@ -67,6 +67,7 @@ const defaultConsole = "console.sock"
 var defaultKernelParameters = []Param{
 	{"panic", "1"},
 	{"initcall_debug", ""},
+	{"nr_cpus", fmt.Sprintf("%d", maxQemuVCPUs())},
 }
 
 type operation int
diff --git a/virtcontainers/qemu_amd64.go b/virtcontainers/qemu_amd64.go
index 2e3406a921..15e1fd8185 100644
--- a/virtcontainers/qemu_amd64.go
+++ b/virtcontainers/qemu_amd64.go
@@ -8,6 +8,7 @@ package virtcontainers
 import (
 	"fmt"
 	"os"
+	"runtime"
 	"strconv"
 
 	govmmQemu "github.com/intel/govmm/qemu"
@@ -73,7 +74,7 @@ var supportedQemuMachines = []govmmQemu.Machine{
 
 // returns the maximum number of vCPUs supported
 func maxQemuVCPUs() uint32 {
-	return uint32(240)
+	return uint32(runtime.NumCPU())
 }
 
 func newQemuArch(config HypervisorConfig) qemuArch {