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.

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

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,