diff --git a/cpp/src/glm/qn/mg/standardization.cuh b/cpp/src/glm/qn/mg/standardization.cuh
index 8721873655..5fd0b5865e 100644
--- a/cpp/src/glm/qn/mg/standardization.cuh
+++ b/cpp/src/glm/qn/mg/standardization.cuh
@@ -88,8 +88,7 @@ void vars(const raft::handle_t& handle,
       T scaled_m = weight * m * m;
       T diff     = v - scaled_m;
       // avoid negative variance that is due to precision loss of floating point arithmetic
-      if (diff < 0) { diff += scaled_m; }
-      return diff;
+      return diff >= 0. ? diff : v;
     },
     stream);
 }