diff --git a/cpp/include/cudf_test/testing_main.hpp b/cpp/include/cudf_test/testing_main.hpp
index 5441a46dd27..5e5781ddf4c 100644
--- a/cpp/include/cudf_test/testing_main.hpp
+++ b/cpp/include/cudf_test/testing_main.hpp
@@ -126,7 +126,7 @@ inline auto parse_cudf_test_opts(int argc, char** argv)
       std::getenv("GTEST_CUDF_STREAM_MODE");  // Overridden by CLI options
     char const* env_stream_error_mode =
       std::getenv("GTEST_CUDF_STREAM_ERROR_MODE");  // Overridden by CLI options
-    auto default_rmm_mode          = env_rmm_mode ? env_rmm_mode : "pool";
+    auto default_rmm_mode          = env_rmm_mode ? env_rmm_mode : "async";
     auto default_stream_mode       = env_stream_mode ? env_stream_mode : "default";
     auto default_stream_error_mode = env_stream_error_mode ? env_stream_error_mode : "error";
     options.allow_unrecognised_options().add_options()(
diff --git a/cpp/scripts/gtest_memory_usage.sh b/cpp/scripts/gtest_memory_usage.sh
index b11075c6f27..a1a2c688edf 100755
--- a/cpp/scripts/gtest_memory_usage.sh
+++ b/cpp/scripts/gtest_memory_usage.sh
@@ -4,13 +4,32 @@
 export GTEST_CUDF_RMM_MODE=cuda
 export GTEST_CUDF_MEMORY_PEAK=1
 export GTEST_BRIEF=1
+
+# Collect all test results
+results=()
 for gt in gtests/*_TEST ; do
   test_name=$(basename "${gt}")
   echo -n "$test_name"
   # dependent on the string output from testing_main.hpp
   bytes=$(${gt} 2>/dev/null | grep Peak | cut -d' ' -f4)
   echo ",${bytes}"
+  results+=("$test_name,$bytes")
 done
+
 unset GTEST_BRIEF
 unset GTEST_CUDF_RMM_MODE
 unset GTEST_CUDF_MEMORY_PEAK
+
+# Output tests using more than 1GB
+echo ""
+echo "Tests using more than 1GB of memory:"
+threshold=1073741824  # 1GB in bytes
+for result in "${results[@]}" ; do
+  test_name=$(echo "$result" | cut -d',' -f1)
+  bytes=$(echo "$result" | cut -d',' -f2)
+  if [[ -n "$bytes" && "$bytes" -gt "$threshold" ]] ; then
+    # Convert bytes to GB with 2 decimal places
+    gb=$(awk "BEGIN {printf \"%.2f\", $bytes / 1073741824}")
+    echo "$test_name: ${gb} GB"
+  fi
+done
diff --git a/cpp/tests/CMakeLists.txt b/cpp/tests/CMakeLists.txt
index 4de41a494b0..66dbd92110c 100644
--- a/cpp/tests/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/cpp/tests/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -20,6 +20,29 @@ enable_testing()
 include(rapids-test)
 rapids_test_init()
 
+# ##################################################################################################
+# **Note about test memory usage:**
+#
+# We design the test suite to run in CI with max parallelism on GPUs with 16 GB of memory or more.
+# Tests are assigned GPU memory percentages to enable safe parallel execution. We draw an arbitrary
+# line that tests are allowed to run in parallel if they consume less than 1 GB of peak GPU memory,
+# and are run serially otherwise. This allows up to 14 tests in parallel on a 16 GB GPU with a bit
+# of room for overhead. (14 * 7% is 98%, and we are required to use integer percentages.) Therefore,
+# tests are assigned 7% of the GPU by default, and 100% if they use >=1 GB of memory. ctest won't
+# schedule more than 100% of the GPU, so at most 14 tests in parallel. This means on a 16 GB GPU, we
+# can safely run `ctest -jN` with N>=14.
+#
+# **Guidelines:**
+#
+# * Tests using <=1 GB: Use default (no GPUS/PERCENT parameters, defaults to 7%)
+# * Tests using >1 GB: Mark as "GPUS 1 PERCENT 100" to reserve the entire GPU
+#
+# Marking large tests with PERCENT 100 prevents memory oversubscription and ensures only one large
+# test runs at a time, while smaller tests can still run in parallel.
+#
+# The peak memory usage of all tests can be determined with cpp/scripts/gtest_memory_usage.sh.
+# ##################################################################################################
+
 # This function takes in a test name and test source and handles setting all of the associated
 # properties and linking to build the test
 function(ConfigureTest CMAKE_TEST_NAME)
@@ -30,7 +53,7 @@ function(ConfigureTest CMAKE_TEST_NAME)
 
   if(NOT DEFINED _CUDF_TEST_GPUS AND NOT DEFINED _CUDF_TEST_PERCENT)
     set(_CUDF_TEST_GPUS 1)
-    set(_CUDF_TEST_PERCENT 15)
+    set(_CUDF_TEST_PERCENT 7)
   endif()
 
   if(NOT DEFINED _CUDF_TEST_GPUS)
@@ -164,8 +187,6 @@ ConfigureTest(
   groupby/sum_tests.cpp
   groupby/tdigest_tests.cpp
   groupby/var_tests.cpp
-  GPUS 1
-  PERCENT 100
 )
 
 # ##################################################################################################
@@ -173,6 +194,8 @@ ConfigureTest(
 ConfigureTest(
   JOIN_TEST join/join_tests.cpp join/conditional_join_tests.cu join/cross_join_tests.cpp
   join/semi_anti_join_tests.cpp join/mixed_join_tests.cu join/distinct_join_tests.cpp
+  GPUS 1
+  PERCENT 100
 )
 
 # ##################################################################################################
@@ -204,17 +227,13 @@ ConfigureTest(
 ConfigureTest(
   PARTITIONING_TEST partitioning/hash_partition_test.cpp partitioning/round_robin_test.cpp
   partitioning/partition_test.cpp
-  GPUS 1
-  PERCENT 70
 )
 
 # ##################################################################################################
 # * quantiles tests -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 ConfigureTest(
   QUANTILES_TEST quantiles/percentile_approx_test.cpp quantiles/quantile_test.cpp
-  quantiles/quantiles_test.cpp
-  GPUS 1
-  PERCENT 70 EXTRA_LIBS ${ARROW_LIBRARIES}
+  quantiles/quantiles_test.cpp EXTRA_LIBS ${ARROW_LIBRARIES}
 )
 
 # ##################################################################################################
@@ -231,8 +250,6 @@ ConfigureTest(
   reductions/scan_tests.cpp
   reductions/segmented_reduction_tests.cpp
   reductions/tdigest_tests.cpp
-  GPUS 1
-  PERCENT 70
 )
 
 # ##################################################################################################
@@ -268,6 +285,8 @@ ConfigureTest(
   binaryop/binop-compiled-test.cpp
   binaryop/binop-compiled-fixed_point-test.cpp
   binaryop/binop-generic-ptx-test.cpp
+  GPUS 1
+  PERCENT 100
 )
 
 # ##################################################################################################
@@ -310,11 +329,7 @@ ConfigureTest(
 ConfigureTest(COMPRESSION_TEST io/comp/comp_test.cpp)
 ConfigureTest(ROW_SELECTION_TEST io/row_selection_test.cpp)
 
-ConfigureTest(
-  CSV_TEST io/csv_test.cpp
-  GPUS 1
-  PERCENT 30 EXTRA_LIBS ${ARROW_LIBRARIES}
-)
+ConfigureTest(CSV_TEST io/csv_test.cpp EXTRA_LIBS ${ARROW_LIBRARIES})
 ConfigureTest(
   ORC_TEST io/orc_chunked_reader_test.cu io/orc_test.cpp
   GPUS 1
@@ -332,7 +347,7 @@ ConfigureTest(
   io/parquet_v2_test.cpp
   io/parquet_writer_test.cpp
   GPUS 1
-  PERCENT 30
+  PERCENT 100
 )
 ConfigureTest(
   HYBRID_SCAN_TEST
@@ -356,9 +371,7 @@ ConfigureTest(
   CROARING_COMPILER_SUPPORTS_AVX512=0
 )
 ConfigureTest(
-  JSON_TEST io/json/json_test.cpp io/json/json_chunked_reader.cu
-  GPUS 1
-  PERCENT 30 EXTRA_LIBS ${ARROW_LIBRARIES}
+  JSON_TEST io/json/json_test.cpp io/json/json_chunked_reader.cu EXTRA_LIBS ${ARROW_LIBRARIES}
 )
 ConfigureTest(JSON_WRITER_TEST io/json/json_writer.cpp)
 ConfigureTest(JSON_TYPE_CAST_TEST io/json/json_type_cast_test.cu)
@@ -367,11 +380,7 @@ ConfigureTest(MULTIBYTE_SPLIT_TEST io/text/multibyte_split_test.cpp)
 ConfigureTest(JSON_QUOTE_NORMALIZATION io/json/json_quote_normalization_test.cpp)
 ConfigureTest(JSON_WHITESPACE_NORMALIZATION io/json/json_whitespace_normalization_test.cu)
 ConfigureTest(JSON_TREE_CSR io/json/json_tree_csr.cu)
-ConfigureTest(
-  DATA_CHUNK_SOURCE_TEST io/text/data_chunk_source_test.cpp
-  GPUS 1
-  PERCENT 100
-)
+ConfigureTest(DATA_CHUNK_SOURCE_TEST io/text/data_chunk_source_test.cpp)
 target_link_libraries(DATA_CHUNK_SOURCE_TEST PRIVATE ZLIB::ZLIB)
 ConfigureTest(LOGICAL_STACK_TEST io/fst/logical_stack_test.cu)
 ConfigureTest(FST_TEST io/fst/fst_test.cu)
@@ -382,8 +391,6 @@ ConfigureTest(TYPE_INFERENCE_TEST io/type_inference_test.cu)
 ConfigureTest(
   SORT_TEST sort/rank_test.cpp sort/segmented_sort_tests.cpp sort/sort_nested_types_tests.cpp
   sort/sort_test.cpp sort/stable_sort_tests.cpp sort/top_k_tests.cpp
-  GPUS 1
-  PERCENT 70
 )
 
 # ##################################################################################################
@@ -479,11 +486,7 @@ ConfigureTest(DEVICE_ATOMICS_TEST device_atomics/device_atomics_test.cu)
 
 # ##################################################################################################
 # * transpose tests -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-ConfigureTest(
-  TRANSPOSE_TEST transpose/transpose_test.cpp
-  GPUS 1
-  PERCENT 70
-)
+ConfigureTest(TRANSPOSE_TEST transpose/transpose_test.cpp)
 
 # ##################################################################################################
 # * table tests -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
@@ -536,8 +539,6 @@ ConfigureTest(
   rolling/range_window_bounds_test.cpp
   rolling/range_window_type_test.cpp
   rolling/rolling_test.cpp
-  GPUS 1
-  PERCENT 70
 )
 
 # ##################################################################################################
@@ -558,6 +559,8 @@ ConfigureTest(
 ConfigureTest(
   RESHAPE_TEST reshape/byte_cast_tests.cpp reshape/interleave_columns_tests.cpp
   reshape/table_to_array_tests.cpp reshape/tile_tests.cpp
+  GPUS 1
+  PERCENT 100
 )
 
 # ##################################################################################################
@@ -706,8 +709,6 @@ ConfigureTest(
   lists/sort_lists_tests.cpp
   lists/stream_compaction/apply_boolean_mask_tests.cpp
   lists/stream_compaction/distinct_tests.cpp
-  GPUS 1
-  PERCENT 70
 )
 
 # ##################################################################################################