diff --git a/lib/gpu/lal_neighbor.cpp b/lib/gpu/lal_neighbor.cpp
index 101e92953c..051f55f0a3 100644
--- a/lib/gpu/lal_neighbor.cpp
+++ b/lib/gpu/lal_neighbor.cpp
@@ -587,8 +587,8 @@ void Neighbor::build_nbor_list(double **x, const int inum, const int host_inum,
     const int g2x=static_cast<int>(ceil(static_cast<double>(_maxspecial)/b2x));
     const int g2y=static_cast<int>(ceil(static_cast<double>(nt)/b2y));
     // the maximum number of blocks on the device is typically 65535
-    // we can use a lower number to have more resource per block
-    const int max_num_blocks = 32768;
+    // in principle we can use a lower number to have more resource per block 32768
+    const int max_num_blocks = 65535;
     int shift = 0;
     if (g2y < max_num_blocks) {
       _shared->k_transpose.set_size(g2x,g2y,b2x,b2y);