Google to Buy Parts of HTC’s Vive Engineering Team to Speed Up Android XR Development

Google announced today that it was acquiring parts of HTC’s Vive team to accelerate the development of its new Android XR platform. The new OS, which is currently available in preview for VR developers, is being developed in partnership with Samsung for upcoming extended reality devices.

“Today we signed an agreement to welcome some of the HTC VIVE engineering team to Google, which is subject to customary closing conditions. They are an incredibly strong technical team with a proven track record in the VR space, and we are looking forward to working with them to accelerate the development of the Android XR platform across the headsets and glasses ecosystem,” Google said in the announcement.

In a separate press release, HTC said it will receive $250 million in cash from Google and give the company a “non-exclusive license for HTC’s XR intellectual property.” While certain members of the HTC XR team are joining Google, the Taiwan-based company also said that it will continue its work on its own VIVE XR solutions.

Back in January 2018, you may remember that Google signed an agreement with HTC to bring 2,000 of the company’s employees to its hardware team. Google had been previously working with HTC to develop its Pixel and Pixel 2 smartphones, and the company needed more talent to build a world-class hardware team.

With this new XR agreement with HTC, Google just confirmed its ambition to make Taiwan one of its biggest engineering hubs in the Asia Pacific region. However, the transaction is still subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close in Q1 2025.