diff --git a/hw/core/machine.c b/hw/core/machine.c
index 57463ad77a..c5e0e79e6d 100644
--- a/hw/core/machine.c
+++ b/hw/core/machine.c
@@ -907,6 +907,13 @@ static void machine_initfn(Object *obj)
     /* Register notifier when init is done for sysbus sanity checks */
     ms->sysbus_notifier.notify = machine_init_notify;
     qemu_add_machine_init_done_notifier(&ms->sysbus_notifier);
+
+    /* default to mc->default_cpus */
+    ms->smp.cpus = mc->default_cpus;
+    ms->smp.max_cpus = mc->default_cpus;
+    ms->smp.cores = 1;
+    ms->smp.threads = 1;
+    ms->smp.sockets = 1;
 }
 
 static void machine_finalize(Object *obj)
diff --git a/softmmu/vl.c b/softmmu/vl.c
index 9b67ea300e..b7d7f43c88 100644
--- a/softmmu/vl.c
+++ b/softmmu/vl.c
@@ -3970,13 +3970,6 @@ void qemu_init(int argc, char **argv, char **envp)
         exit(0);
     }
 
-    /* default to machine_class->default_cpus */
-    current_machine->smp.cpus = machine_class->default_cpus;
-    current_machine->smp.max_cpus = machine_class->default_cpus;
-    current_machine->smp.cores = 1;
-    current_machine->smp.threads = 1;
-    current_machine->smp.sockets = 1;
-
     machine_class->smp_parse(current_machine,
         qemu_opts_find(qemu_find_opts("smp-opts"), NULL));