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