WASHINGTON - U.S. authorities are in the "advanced" stages of a criminal probe that could result in an indictment of Chinese technology giant Huawei, a report said Wednesday. The Wall Street Journal, citing anonymous sources, said the Justice Department is looking into allegations of theft involving trade secrets from Huawei's U.S. business partners, including a T-Mobile robotic device used to test smartphones. The Justice Department declined to comment on the report and Huawei did not respond to a request for comment. The move would further escalate tensions between the U.S. and China after the arrest last year in Canada of Huawei's chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou, who is the daughter of the company's founder and remains under house arrest, awaiting proceedings. The Meng case has inflamed U.S.-China and Canada-China relations.

Smart machines and digitalization will boost rather than cut employment -- but people must get used to constant retraining to keep pace with change, the development chief of German software giant SAP tells Handelsblatt. SAP is the world's biggest supplier of business software and is shifting its business model towards cloud computing services. People are too negative about digitalization and artificial intelligence and should embrace new technologies as job creators rather than job killers, Bernd Leukert, the head of development at German business software giant SAP told Handelsblatt at the Davos World Economic Forum last week. Mr. Leukert, 49, who has worked at SAP since 1994 and joined the management board in 2014, said the German education system, the government and firms weren't doing enough to prepare people for a future in which there will be a constant need for new job training. "I think there's there's too much talk of negative scenarios in the discussion about digitalization and new technologies," he said.

SAP chief executive Bill McDermott is preparing the German software giant for the next big trend in the world of technology: artificial intelligence. The company is working hard to become the market leader in machine learning for businesses, its CEO told Handelsblatt. CEO Bill McDermott wants SAP to focus heavily on developing intelligent applications for business software and experts say there is enormous potential in artificial intelligence and machine learning. Under the leadership of its American chief executive, the German software group has acquired companies for €20 billion ($21.3 billion) since 2010 so as not to miss out on cloud computing. It's been a successful move as the company's quarterly figures show.

Companies like Google, IBM and SAP are making massive investments in artificial intelligence. German software maker SAP is investing heavily in artificial intelligence, or AI, especially for business software. AI is expected to fundamentally change our lives in the near future. Cars that navigate autonomously through traffic. Digital assistants that provide doctors with key information needed to make a diagnosis.