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.

It marks HTC’s second major deal with Google, which bought part of the Taiwan company’s smartphone operations for $1.1 billion in 2017.

Google’s current focus at the moment outside of AI is their new Android XR platform, where they see an opportunity to jump at the hype of mixed reality headsets after seeing the success Meta has had with its Meta Quest products and partnership with Ray-Ban.

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,

Samsung’s TM Roh has been hyping up Android XR in a recent interview, and made comments which suggest that Google is aware of the importance of building a solid software backing for its fledgling platform. If these words translate into action then Android XR could be the first real rival to Horizon OS.

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

Google said that the latest deal would accelerate the development of the Android XR platform and strengthen the ecosystem for headsets and glasses

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,