diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 6fcc8a608..4dedede95 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -53,6 +53,7 @@ This project adheres to [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/spec/v2.0.0.htm
 
 - Change `AssertEqual` in `go.opentelemetry.io/otel/log/logtest` to accept `TestingT` in order to support benchmarks and fuzz tests. (#6908)
 - Change `SDKProcessorLogQueueCapacity`, `SDKProcessorLogQueueSize`, `SDKProcessorSpanQueueSize`, and `SDKProcessorSpanQueueCapacity` in `go.opentelemetry.io/otel/semconv/v1.36.0/otelconv` to use a `Int64ObservableUpDownCounter`. (#7041)
+- Change `DefaultExemplarReservoirProviderSelector` in `go.opentelemetry.io/otel/sdk/metric` to use `runtime.GOMAXPROCS(0)` instead of `runtime.NumCPU()` for the `FixedSizeReservoirProvider` default size. (#7094)
 
 <!-- Released section -->
 <!-- Don't change this section unless doing release -->
diff --git a/sdk/metric/exemplar.go b/sdk/metric/exemplar.go
index e5d212158..38b8745e6 100644
--- a/sdk/metric/exemplar.go
+++ b/sdk/metric/exemplar.go
@@ -66,9 +66,11 @@ func DefaultExemplarReservoirProviderSelector(agg Aggregation) exemplar.Reservoi
 		//   provided, the default size MAY be the number of possible
 		//   concurrent threads (e.g. number of CPUs) to help reduce
 		//   contention. Otherwise, a default size of 1 SHOULD be used.
-		n = max(runtime.NumCPU(),
-			// Should never be the case, but be defensive.
-			1)
+		//
+		// Use runtime.GOMAXPROCS instead of runtime.NumCPU to support
+		// containerized environments that may have less than the total number
+		// of logical CPUs available on the local machine allocated to it.
+		n = max(runtime.GOMAXPROCS(0), 1)
 	}
 
 	return exemplar.FixedSizeReservoirProvider(n)