The 2018 Winter Olympics wrapped up with the closing ceremony Sunday night, and as the host of the 2022  Games in Beijing, China presented an eight-minute handover show that incorporated many high-tech elements.

The show was directed by Zhang Yimou, a famous Chinese director who was also responsible for the eight-minute summer handover in Athens in 2004 as well as the opening and closing ceremonies in Beijing in 2008 that received considerable international acclaim.

Unlike Athens which focused on displaying Chinese history with traditional elements like red lantern and jasmine, “Beijing 8 Minutes” emphasized the Chinese people’s sincere welcome to the world using modern technology.

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Performers danced with 24 intelligent robots – representing Beijing hosting the 24th Winter Olympics – as they showed scenes of sports such as skating and skiing.

Leading the team were two dancers in costumes of panda puppets that are the world’s largest but the lightest at the same time, each weighing only about 10 kilograms. To guarantee minimal pressure on the two dancers, researchers had tried hundreds of different materials until ending up with a combination of aluminum alloy tube and carbon fiber-reinforced polymer strip.

CCTV GIF

CCTV GIF

During the whole performance the dancers and robots both wore LED lights on them that are capable of enduring the cold weather at PyeongChang Olympic Stadium without the risks of breaking. The uniforms were also made with graphene to keep the dancers warm.

Images were projected to the icy floor while dancers skated across it, creating a sense of augmented reality. A number of moving monitors in the middle of the field were also controlled by artificial intelligence.