Viral music video by South Korean singer Psy, the 'Gangnam Style' has broken the YouTube viewing limit.
Viral music video by South Korean singer Psy, the 'Gangnam Style' has broken the YouTube viewing limit.YouTube

'Gangnam Style', the mega-hit, super-duper viral and sensational music video by South Korean singer Psy, has been viewed so many times that YouTube has had to upgrade the limit of the number of times that the song can be viewed – in the first ever example of a YouTube video exceeding the viewing limit.

According to YouTube, the video – which is the most watched video ever in the history of internet – has been viewed over 2,147,483,647 times (two billion one hundred forty-seven million four hundred eighty-three thousand six hundred forty-seven).

Now, as reported by the BBC, YouTube has changed the maximum view limit to 9,223,372,036,854,775,808, or more than nine quintillion.

The following is the way how this monstrous numerical should be pronounced in words:

Nine quintillion, two hundred and twenty-three quadrillion, three hundred and seventy-two trillion, thirty-six billion, eight hundred and fifty-four million, seven hundred and seventy-five thousand, eight hundred and eight.

"We never thought a video would be watched in numbers greater than a 32-bit integer..but that was before we met Psy." YouTube said in a statement this week. It previously used a 32-bit integer, which is a unit used to represent data in computer architecture. According to that unit, the maximum possible views it could ever count was 2,147,483,647.

Google, the owner of YouTube, updated the systems to prepare for a bigger number of viewers when it saw the numbers increasing, according to The Verge.

Now, YouTube has changed the integer to 64 bit, which means any video can be viewed for the maximum count of 9.22 quintillion.

The second most-watched video on YouTube – Baby by Justin Bieber – is behind Gangnam Style by over a billion hits.