Novo Nordisk + OpenAI: EU pharma's AI sovereignty bet

Samantha: Welcome to The State of Tech, The European Edition, Monday June fifteen, 2026. I'm Samantha Lawrence.

Bob: And I'm Bob Russell. Today: Meta cuts eight thousand jobs in an AI-driven overhaul, Novo Nordisk goes all-in with OpenAI across drug discovery, the ShinyHunters group rips through Oracle PeopleSoft with a critical zero-day, a Malaysian semiconductor plant signals a supply chain shift, and to close out, two things you can actually use today: the open-source writing app Zettlr, and the free travel planner Wanderlog. Let's start with Meta.

Meta cuts eight thousand jobs and reshapes itself around AI efficiency.

Samantha: Meta Platforms is laying off around eight thousand people, roughly ten percent of its workforce. And the reason the company gives is blunt: AI lets smaller teams do what bigger teams used to do.

Bob: On top of the cuts, Meta is reassigning seven thousand staff to AI-focused teams and scrapping plans to fill six thousand open roles. So this is not just a trim, it is a rewiring of the whole company around AI.

Samantha: And it fits a bigger pattern. Meta's announcement pushes the total tech industry job losses in 2026 past one hundred thousand, with many of those cuts tied directly to AI automation.

Bob: That number is the one to sit with. A year ago, the story was: AI will create new jobs. Today, the story from inside Big Tech is: AI lets us run leaner. Engineering, content moderation, internal tooling, all areas where Meta says fewer people can hit the same output.

Samantha: The reassignments are telling too. Seven thousand people moved into AI teams suggests Meta is not shrinking overall ambition, it is concentrating talent on a narrower set of bets, mostly around generative AI products and the infrastructure behind them.

Bob: And the cancelled six thousand vacancies is arguably the bigger signal for the labour market. Those were jobs that simply will not exist now. The bottom line is that AI is no longer just a tool inside these companies, it is starting to reshape headcount strategy at the very top.

Samantha: For European tech firms, the question is whether this becomes the template. SAP, Spotify, ASML, the big telecoms, they are all running their own AI integration programmes. If Meta can credibly link AI gains to a ten percent cut, expect boards in Paris, Munich and Stockholm to ask the same question.

Bob: European works councils and unions will push back hard, and labour protections here are stronger than in the US. So the same restructuring may take longer and look different. But the direction of travel is becoming difficult to ignore.

Samantha: There is also a skills angle. If hiring slows for traditional software roles while AI specialisms boom, European universities and retraining programmes have a narrowing window to respond. Industry groups have been warning for months that the continent risks a shortage of AI engineers exactly as demand spikes.

Bob: And for workers already inside large European tech employers, the message from Menlo Park is uncomfortable but clear: the people who move closest to AI products are the ones being protected.

Novo Nordisk and OpenAI strike a deal to put AI across the entire pharma business.

Samantha: Danish pharma giant Novo Nordisk is partnering with OpenAI to roll AI into every corner of its operations, with full deployment targeted by the end of 2026.

Bob: And when they say every corner, they mean it: drug discovery, clinical trials, manufacturing, supply chains, and commercial operations. The stated goal is to speed up new treatments for obesity and diabetes, the company's two biggest markets.

Samantha: That timeline is the striking part. End of 2026 is months away, not years. Most large enterprises talk about multi-year AI roadmaps. Novo Nordisk is signalling something much more aggressive, and OpenAI is clearly the chosen partner across the stack.

Bob: It also lands at a moment when Novo Nordisk is under pressure. Competition in the weight-loss drug market has intensified, particularly from US rivals, and AI-assisted discovery is being pitched as the way to keep a pipeline edge.

Samantha: What changes for patients is less immediate. Drug discovery cycles are still long, and regulators in Europe and the US will scrutinise any AI-derived candidate just as rigorously. But on the operational side, AI in supply chains and manufacturing can show up quickly, in things like fewer shortages and faster scale-up of new doses.

Bob: For Europe, this is a notable moment. A flagship European company is publicly betting its core competitive position on a US AI provider. That is the trade-off the EU has been wrestling with: sovereignty versus speed.

Samantha: It also raises a regulatory question. The EU AI Act treats high-risk medical applications with extra obligations. Novo Nordisk and OpenAI will have to show how clinical-grade AI use is documented, audited, and kept inside European data rules.

Bob: And it puts pressure on rivals like Sanofi, Bayer, and Roche. If the Novo Nordisk and OpenAI partnership delivers visible gains in trial design or manufacturing speed, expect similar deals across European pharma before the year is out.

Samantha: Quick interruption. If you listen to The State of Tech regularly, hit that like button and subscribe, that way you'll never miss an episode. Okay, moving on.

ShinyHunters exploit a critical Oracle PeopleSoft flaw, hitting more than one hundred organisations.

Bob: The cybercrime group ShinyHunters has been linked to a wave of attacks exploiting a critical zero-day vulnerability in Oracle PeopleSoft, the widely used business software for HR and finance.

Samantha: According to Mandiant, Google's incident response unit, attackers were active between May twenty-seventh and June ninth. More than one hundred organisations have been notified, with the majority being colleges and universities in the United States.

Bob: The flaw is rated nine point eight out of ten in severity. It allows remote code execution without authentication, which in plain terms means an attacker can take control of a server over the internet without needing a password.

Samantha: Oracle has issued a security advisory, and the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has added the vulnerability to its catalogue of known exploited flaws, the list that effectively forces federal agencies to patch fast.

Bob: The reason this matters beyond the US is that Oracle PeopleSoft runs in plenty of European universities, public bodies, and large employers. The same systems hold payroll data, student records, and financial information.

Samantha: ShinyHunters has a track record of stealing data and extorting victims, sometimes leaking material publicly when ransoms are refused. So the risk is not just disruption, it is mass exposure of sensitive records.

Bob: For European IT teams, the immediate to-do is straightforward: apply Oracle's patch, hunt for indicators of compromise in the window between late May and early June, and assume nothing is clean until checked. Under the EU's NIS2 directive, organisations in essential sectors also face notification obligations if they find a breach.

Samantha: It is also a reminder that the soft underbelly of digital infrastructure is rarely the flashy AI system. It is the decades-old enterprise software quietly running payroll for thousands of staff.

Tsang Yow plans a Malaysia plant as semiconductor supply chains tilt toward Southeast Asia.

Bob: Drivetrain systems manufacturer Tsang Yow is setting up a new plant in Malaysia, with trial production expected before the end of 2026. The move is pitched as a contribution to more resilient, regional semiconductor supply chains and as a buffer against tariffs.

Samantha: The bigger story here is the gravitational pull of Southeast Asia in the chip world. Malaysia in particular has become a hub for advanced packaging, the step where individual chips are bonded together into the modules that power AI servers and modern cars.

Bob: And the demand driver is no secret. AI accelerators and advanced chips need more sophisticated packaging and supporting components than the previous generation. So companies that sit in the supply chain are following the work to where capacity is being built.

Samantha: Tariffs are the other half of the equation. With trade tensions between the US and China nowhere near resolved, manufacturers are placing bets that production routed through Malaysia, Vietnam, and Thailand carries less political risk.

Bob: For Europe, this is both a warning and an opportunity. A warning, because the EU's Chips Act was meant to anchor more semiconductor capacity on the continent, and money is still flowing faster to Asia. An opportunity, because European industrial firms can plug into these new Southeast Asian hubs as customers and partners.

Samantha: It also matters for the European auto industry. Drivetrain electronics are exactly the kind of components that left carmakers stranded during the last chip shortage. A more diversified supply base is, in principle, good news for plants in Wolfsburg, Stuttgart and Turin.

Bob: The trade-off, of course, is that diversification is not the same as proximity. Chips still need to travel, and geopolitical shocks in the South China Sea would hit European factories just as hard as American ones.

Zettlr is the free, open-source writing app that keeps your work entirely on your own machine.

Samantha: To close out, two things you can actually use today. First up: Zettlr, a free writing app aimed at anyone who deals with longer pieces of text. Reports, essays, articles, theses, that sort of thing.

Bob: Zettlr is open-source and runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux. It uses plain text files, so your work is not locked into a proprietary format, and everything stays on your own computer unless you choose otherwise.

Samantha: What users praise is the focus mode and the way it handles citations. Academics in particular have adopted it because it links cleanly with reference managers like Zotero. But it is just as useful for journalists, analysts, and anyone who writes structured documents.

Bob: The setup takes a few minutes. Download the installer from zettlr dot com, open a folder of notes or start a new one, and the app treats that folder as a workspace. There is a built-in dark mode, a distraction-free view, and word count tracking by goal.

Samantha: For European users, the appeal is partly privacy. Zettlr does not send drafts to a cloud service for AI training, which is increasingly relevant given how many writing tools now quietly pipe text through external models. If you work with sensitive material, that matters.

Bob: It will not replace a full word processor for heavy formatting or collaborative editing. But for the first draft, for note-taking that you want to keep for years, and for anyone who likes the idea of owning their files outright, reviewers consistently rate it as one of the better picks.

Samantha: And because it is free and open-source, you can try it this afternoon with nothing to lose. If it does not suit, your files are still readable in any text editor.

Bob: A small but useful tip from regular users: pair it with a simple folder structure on your own drive, by year or by project. The app rewards a bit of order up front.

Wanderlog is the free travel planner that keeps flights, hotels, and maps in one place.

Samantha: And the second pick, with summer travel season warming up: Wanderlog, a free trip planner that has been quietly gaining a loyal following.

Bob: Wanderlog lets you build an itinerary day by day, drop in hotels, flights, restaurants, and sights, and see the whole thing on a map. It works in a browser and as an app on iOS and Android.

Samantha: The feature people seem to like most is the email forwarding. You forward a booking confirmation from your airline or hotel, and Wanderlog pulls the details into your trip automatically. No retyping flight numbers or check-in times.

Bob: It also handles shared trips well. Multiple people can edit the same itinerary, vote on restaurants, and split expenses inside the app. For a group weekend in Lisbon or a family road trip through the Alps, that removes a lot of group-chat chaos.

Samantha: For European travellers, there are a couple of practical points. Offline maps work once you load a city, which is handy when roaming or in areas with patchy coverage. And the place recommendations lean on real user reviews rather than sponsored listings.

Bob: The free version covers most of what an individual traveller needs. There is a paid tier for power users with unlimited trips and extra collaboration features, but you do not need it to plan a normal holiday.

Samantha: Setup takes about five minutes. Create an account, name your trip, drop in your destination, and start adding what you want to see. The map view does the rest of the heavy lifting.

Bob: A practical pick heading into the summer.

Samantha: Today we covered: Meta's eight thousand AI-driven job cuts, Novo Nordisk's sweeping AI partnership with OpenAI, the ShinyHunters attack on Oracle PeopleSoft, Tsang Yow's new Malaysian chip-supply plant, and two things to try yourself: the writing app Zettlr and the travel planner Wanderlog.

Bob: Want to know more or react? Visit stateoftech.eu or email us at info@doorzetters.net.

Bob: State of Tech, the tech world in 15 minutes.