How to scale worker_connections

I have set up an Nginx instance with the below config values.

[CODE]
worker_processes 4;

events {
worker_connections 20000;
}
[/CODE]

I expected nginx to create 4*20000=80,000 connections, but I see that nginx still maxes out at 20,000. I have verified ulimits as well which is not limiting the connections. I have a 4 cpu with 8GB of RAM. Suggestions please on why Nginx is not able to scale as intended? Thanks in advance.

[ERROR LOG]
2021/06/29 17:34:28 [alert] 47545#47545: 20000 worker_connections are not enough

2021/06/29 17:34:28 [alert] 47545#47545: *61951997 20000 worker_connections are not enough while connecting to upstream, client: 107.77.224.143, server: .com, request: "PUT /3049/7060/report HTTP/1.1", upstream: "/7060/report", host: "host
[/ERROR LOG]