HTC and Google initially announced their US$1.1billion cooperation agreement back in September last year. Today, Google officially closed the deal.

Under the definitive agreement certain HTC employees – many of whom are already working with Google to develop Pixel smartphones – will join Google.

HTC will receive US$1.1 billion in cash from Google as part of the transaction.

Separately, Google will receive a non-exclusive license for HTC intellectual property (IP).

The partnership is not the first of its kind between HTC and Google, which share a decade-long strategic relationship based on the developer of smartphones.

Cher Wang, chairwoman and CEO of HTC, commented on the partnership, “This agreement is a brilliant next step in our longstanding partnership, enabling Google to supercharge their hardware business while ensuring continued innovation within our HTC smartphone and VIVE virtual reality businesses.

“We believe HTC is well positioned to maintain our rich legacy of innovation and realize the potential of a new generation of connected products and services.

Google's senior vice president of hardware Rich Osterloh welcomed the HTC employees to Google in a blog post, saying, “These new colleagues bring decades of experience achieving a series of “firsts” particularly in the smartphone industry - including bringing to market the first 3G smartphone in 2005.

Osterloh says, “HTC has been a longtime partner of Google and has created some of the most beautiful, premium devices on the market.

HTC will also continue to build the virtual reality ecosystem to grow its VIVE business, while investing in other next-generation technologies, including the Internet of Things, augmented reality and artificial intelligence.

With the close of the deal, Osterloh also announced that Google is expanding its footprint in the Asia Pacific region.

Taiwan is a key innovation and engineering hub for Google, and Taipei will now become the largest Google engineering site in APAC.