diff --git a/backend/ianalyzer/settings.py b/backend/ianalyzer/settings.py
index c4421b33b..b3664c18d 100644
--- a/backend/ianalyzer/settings.py
+++ b/backend/ianalyzer/settings.py
@@ -116,6 +116,9 @@
 
 MEDIA_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'data')
 
+INDEX_MULTIPROCESSING = True
+INDEX_BATCH_SIZE = 100
+
 # This needs to be the last line of the settings.py, so that all settings can be overridden.
 try:
     from ianalyzer.settings_local import *
diff --git a/backend/indexing/run_populate_task.py b/backend/indexing/run_populate_task.py
index 8b391bdad..73f2be757 100644
--- a/backend/indexing/run_populate_task.py
+++ b/backend/indexing/run_populate_task.py
@@ -1,25 +1,32 @@
+import itertools
+import multiprocessing
 import logging
 import elasticsearch.helpers as es_helpers
 
+from django import db
+from django.conf import settings
 from addcorpus.reader import make_reader
 from indexing.models import PopulateIndexTask
 from indexing.stop_job import raise_if_aborted
 
 logger = logging.getLogger('indexing')
 
+# copied from python docs (available in python >= 3.12)
+# see: https://docs.python.org/3/library/itertools.html
+def batched(iterable, n):
+    "Batch data into tuples of length n. The last batch may be shorter."
+    if n < 1:
+        raise ValueError('n must be at least one')
+    it = iter(iterable)
+    while (batch := tuple(itertools.islice(it, n))):
+        yield batch
 
-def populate(task: PopulateIndexTask):
-    '''
-    Populate an ElasticSearch index from the corpus' source files.
-    '''
-    reader = make_reader(task.corpus)
 
-    logger.info('Attempting to populate index...')
+def process_batch(task_id, files):
+    db.connections['default'].connect()
 
-    # Obtain source documents
-    files = reader.sources(
-        start=task.document_min_date,
-        end=task.document_max_date)
+    task = PopulateIndexTask.objects.get(pk=task_id)
+    reader = make_reader(task.corpus)
     docs = reader.documents(files)
 
     # Each source document is decorated as an indexing operation, so that it
@@ -51,3 +58,24 @@ def populate(task: PopulateIndexTask):
         if not success:
             logger.error(f"FAILED INDEX: {info}")
         raise_if_aborted(task)
+
+
+def populate(task: PopulateIndexTask):
+    '''
+    Populate an ElasticSearch index from the corpus' source files.
+    '''
+    reader = make_reader(task.corpus)
+
+    logger.info('Attempting to populate index...')
+
+    # Obtain source documents
+    files = reader.sources(
+        start=task.document_min_date,
+        end=task.document_max_date)
+
+    if settings.INDEX_MULTIPROCESSING:
+        with multiprocessing.Pool() as pool:
+            args = zip(itertools.repeat(task.pk), batched(files, settings.INDEX_BATCH_SIZE))
+            pool.starmap(process_batch, args)
+    else:
+        process_batch(task.pk, files)