Intel Drones Light Up Sky Over Santa Clara
SANTA CLARA (KPIX 5) -- A Bay Area tech giant put on a massive light show Wednesday night over Santa Clara as part of its 50th anniversary celebration.
Microchip maker Intel was founded on this date in 1968.
Part of the company's celebration was special drone light show over its Santa Clara headquarters.
The show utilized 500 Intel Shooting Star drones that were under the control of a single operator.
The drones flew 500 feet high and 500 feet across above Intel's campus.
Natalie Cheung, the General Manager of Intel's Drone Light Shows program, said the project started three years ago.
Chung said Wednesday night's show was a special homecoming after drone performances at the Super Bowl and the Olympics.
"When we first started this project, our goal was to fly here in Santa Clara with just 100 drones all controlled by one pilot. We started looking at what we did in Germany. We did it in Palm Springs and then Sydney and grew into its own program," explained Cheung. "Then the 50th anniversary came along and we thought let's do it at the headquarters."
The Intel Shooting Star drones are capable of more than 4 billion color combinations.
This past weekend, the company flew 2,018 drones over its facility in Folsom, setting a new Guinness World Records title for the most unmanned aerial vehicles airborne simultaneously.