US OK's IBM server unit sale to Lenovo

International Business Machines Corp said over the weekend that US regulators had approved the $2.3 billion sale of its low-end server business to Lenovo Group Ltd, as the company continues its shift to more profitable software and services like cloud computing and data analytics.

IBM has already divested $16 billion in annual revenue over the past decade from low-margin businesses like personal computers and printers.

The approval by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (CIFUS) came despite the members' concern that IBM servers used in the Pentagon's networks could be accessed remotely by Chinese spies and compromised.

Lenovo has been through the secretive CFIUS process three times before and has won approval each time, according to a source familiar with the process.