WATCH: High-tech drones steal the show at the Winter Olympics

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Transcript for High-tech drones steal the show at the Winter Olympics

Tens of millions of people all over the planet tuing in for the opening ceremony of the winter gapes in stealing the show, a drone performance shattering world records. Matt Gutman joins us with more. Hi there, Matt. Reporter: Hey, Paula. I was actually in that stadium last night watching it and what we saw, those swarms of drones almost seemed too incredible to be real but they were real and some of those figures that you saw were over 300 feet high. Now, incredibly these drones and I got a loner here from Intel weigh less than a pound but put a thousand of them or more in the air at the same time and they create something that’s now being called digital fireworks. The drone show broadcast during the opening ceremony didn’t just dazzle, it smashed a world record. 1218 drones set aloft by Intel creating the largest ever swarm of synchronized drones, the largest number previous to that just over 500. The drones creating animated three-dimensional figures. That snowboarder coasting through the sky over imaginary bumps. A dove fluttering in the stars and, of course, the olympic rings. So what’s that in your hand. So, this is the Intel shooting star drone. This is the drone that flew at the opening ceremony, 1200 of these flew to create the snowboarder and olympic ring. This weighs 330 gram, about the weight of a volleyball and the reason why we wanted to do that was for safety in mind and wanted to make it plastic and foam and lightweight. $% Reporter: A smaller number of drones will fly here every night during the medal ceremonies. This is something that’s completely different from what you’ve ever seen before. Yeah. It’s a new form of storytelling, right? It’s something where it’s sort of like digital fireworks. Reporter: The drones rely on sophisticated software that controls the swarms. It’s beautiful but it’s not easy. There have been a lot of challenges. You can never predict weather. Reporter: The drones can only fly in certain areas under certain conditions. What the olympic committee described as logistical issues caused the cancellation of the live drone show during last night’s opening ceremonies. Intel’s drones have made a number of cameos lately including last year’s super bowl halftime show painting that giant American flag behind lady gaga and for the premiere of the movie “Wonder woman.” You literally have a point of light, multiple points you can control in the sky and it’s something that can create such a beautiful experience, that’s what we want to create across the ??? Now, what’s incredible is that less than two pilots can operate those thousand plus drones at one time. You know, we mentioned some of the conditions that could ground the drones, the cold is one of them because they run on battery and the cold absolutely zaps the battery. The other issue is the wind. You may be seeing it flapping behind me, maybe in my face, it is really cold out here with a windchill right now, guys of zero degrees. Zero. Zero. Well, hey, if Tonga man can enter the ceremony wearing nothing, we think that it’s not that cold, right? You know what, I’ll be impressed with drones when they start delivering dinner. Thank you, Matt Gutman. Thanks, Matt.

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

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