diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 95a7d706..09e36a0c 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -138,7 +138,7 @@ for capability in compute_capabilities:
 
 # Use NVCC threads to parallelize the build.
 if nvcc_cuda_version >= Version("11.2"):
-    nvcc_threads = int(os.getenv("NVCC_THREADS"), 8)
+    nvcc_threads = int(os.getenv("NVCC_THREADS", 8))
     num_threads = min(os.cpu_count(), nvcc_threads)
     NVCC_FLAGS += ["--threads", str(num_threads)]