diff --git a/chromadb/utils/data_loaders.py b/chromadb/utils/data_loaders.py
index f92b28e372f..60057e0e584 100644
--- a/chromadb/utils/data_loaders.py
+++ b/chromadb/utils/data_loaders.py
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
 import importlib
+import multiprocessing
 from typing import Optional, Sequence, List
 import numpy as np
 from chromadb.api.types import URI, DataLoader, Image
@@ -6,7 +7,7 @@
 
 
 class ImageLoader(DataLoader[List[Optional[Image]]]):
-    def __init__(self, max_workers: int = 4) -> None:
+    def __init__(self, max_workers: int = multiprocessing.cpu_count()) -> None:
         try:
             self._PILImage = importlib.import_module("PIL.Image")
             self._max_workers = max_workers