Google has agreed to acquire part of HTC's extended-reality (XR) business for $250 million, expanding its push into virtual and augmented reality hardware The deal involves transferring some of the HTC VIVE engineering staff to Google and granting non-exclusive IP rights.

Google is paying HTC $250 million in cash for a deal that will give the bigger company's plans for Android XR a boost. Under the terms of their agreement, some members of the HTC Vive engineering team will be joining Google,

Taiwan's HTC said on Thursday it will sell part of its unit for extended reality (XR) headsets and glasses to Google for $250 million and transfer some of its employees to the U.S. company. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of this year,

Google has bought parts of another HTC division, coming years after the company acquired most of HTC's mobile unit.