diff --git a/quickwit/Cargo.lock b/quickwit/Cargo.lock
index 13278547b53..c2afc0f462d 100644
--- a/quickwit/Cargo.lock
+++ b/quickwit/Cargo.lock
@@ -5860,6 +5860,7 @@ version = "0.8.0"
 dependencies = [
  "anyhow",
  "async-trait",
+ "bytesize",
  "fnv",
  "futures",
  "itertools 0.13.0",
diff --git a/quickwit/quickwit-control-plane/Cargo.toml b/quickwit/quickwit-control-plane/Cargo.toml
index ffb57b1b732..024704736e0 100644
--- a/quickwit/quickwit-control-plane/Cargo.toml
+++ b/quickwit/quickwit-control-plane/Cargo.toml
@@ -13,6 +13,7 @@ license.workspace = true
 [dependencies]
 anyhow = { workspace = true }
 async-trait = { workspace = true }
+bytesize = { workspace = true }
 fnv = { workspace = true }
 futures = { workspace = true }
 itertools = { workspace = true }
diff --git a/quickwit/quickwit-control-plane/src/indexing_scheduler/mod.rs b/quickwit/quickwit-control-plane/src/indexing_scheduler/mod.rs
index 45543609da2..6ec869819e4 100644
--- a/quickwit/quickwit-control-plane/src/indexing_scheduler/mod.rs
+++ b/quickwit/quickwit-control-plane/src/indexing_scheduler/mod.rs
@@ -26,11 +26,13 @@ use std::num::NonZeroU32;
 use std::sync::Arc;
 use std::time::{Duration, Instant};
 
+use bytesize::ByteSize;
 use fnv::{FnvHashMap, FnvHashSet};
 use itertools::Itertools;
 use quickwit_proto::control_plane::{RebuildPlanRequest, RebuildPlanResponse};
 use quickwit_proto::indexing::{
     ApplyIndexingPlanRequest, CpuCapacity, IndexingService, IndexingTask, PIPELINE_FULL_CAPACITY,
+    PIPELINE_THROUGHTPUT,
 };
 use quickwit_proto::metastore::SourceType;
 use quickwit_proto::types::NodeId;
@@ -127,20 +129,25 @@ impl fmt::Debug for IndexingScheduler {
 /// This function averages their statistics.
 ///
 /// For the moment, this function only takes in account the measured throughput,
-/// and assumes a constant CPU usage of 4 vCPU = 30mb/s.
+/// and assumes a constant CPU usage of 4 vCPU = 20mb/s.
 ///
 /// It does not take in account the variation that could raise from the different
 /// doc mapping / nature of the data, etc.
 fn compute_load_per_shard(shard_entries: &[&ShardEntry]) -> NonZeroU32 {
-    let num_shards = shard_entries.len().max(1) as u32;
-    let average_throughput_per_shard: u32 = shard_entries
+    let num_shards = shard_entries.len().max(1) as u64;
+    let average_throughput_per_shard_bytes: u64 = shard_entries
         .iter()
-        .map(|shard_entry| u32::from(shard_entry.ingestion_rate.0))
-        .sum::<u32>()
-        .div_ceil(num_shards);
-    let num_cpu_millis = (PIPELINE_FULL_CAPACITY.cpu_millis() * average_throughput_per_shard) / 20;
+        .map(|shard_entry| shard_entry.ingestion_rate.0 as u64 * bytesize::MIB)
+        .sum::<u64>()
+        .div_ceil(num_shards)
+        // A shard throughput cannot exceed PIPELINE_THROUGHPUT in the long term (this is enforced
+        // by the configuration).
+        .min(PIPELINE_THROUGHTPUT.as_u64());
+    let num_cpu_millis = ((PIPELINE_FULL_CAPACITY.cpu_millis() as u64
+        * average_throughput_per_shard_bytes) as u64)
+        / PIPELINE_THROUGHTPUT.as_u64();
     const MIN_CPU_LOAD_PER_SHARD: u32 = 50u32;
-    NonZeroU32::new(num_cpu_millis.max(MIN_CPU_LOAD_PER_SHARD)).unwrap()
+    NonZeroU32::new((num_cpu_millis as u32).max(MIN_CPU_LOAD_PER_SHARD)).unwrap()
 }
 
 fn get_sources_to_schedule(model: &ControlPlaneModel) -> Vec<SourceToSchedule> {
diff --git a/quickwit/quickwit-proto/src/indexing/mod.rs b/quickwit/quickwit-proto/src/indexing/mod.rs
index b79311f21fd..968c575aee5 100644
--- a/quickwit/quickwit-proto/src/indexing/mod.rs
+++ b/quickwit/quickwit-proto/src/indexing/mod.rs
@@ -22,6 +22,7 @@ use std::fmt::{Display, Formatter};
 use std::hash::Hash;
 use std::ops::{Add, Mul, Sub};
 
+use bytesize::ByteSize;
 use quickwit_actors::AskError;
 use quickwit_common::pubsub::Event;
 use quickwit_common::tower::{MakeLoadShedError, RpcName};
@@ -176,9 +177,17 @@ impl Display for PipelineMetrics {
 }
 
 /// One full pipeline (including merging) is assumed to consume 4 CPU threads.
-/// The actual number somewhere between 3 and 4.
+/// The actual number somewhere between 3 and 4. Quickwit is not super sensitive to this number.
+///
+/// It simply impacts the point where we prefer to work on balancing the load over the different
+/// indexers and the point where we prefer improving other feature of the system (shard locality,
+/// grouping pipelines associated to a given index on the same node, etc.).
 pub const PIPELINE_FULL_CAPACITY: CpuCapacity = CpuCapacity::from_cpu_millis(4_000u32);
 
+/// One full pipeline (including merging) is supposed to have the capacity to index at least 20mb/s.
+/// This is a defensive value: In reality, this is typically above 30mb/s.
+pub const PIPELINE_THROUGHTPUT: ByteSize = ByteSize::mb(20);
+
 /// The CpuCapacity represents an amount of CPU resource available.
 ///
 /// It is usually expressed in CPU millis (For instance, one full CPU thread is