OpenAI is betting a new “era” of computing will justify the company’s decision to spend billions of dollars on bespoke hardware to go with it, Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar said.

The artificial intelligence startup, best known for the ChatGPT chatbot, announced plans on Wednesday to buy iPhone designer Jony Ive’s devices startup io for about $6.4 billion. Ive’s company was founded roughly a year ago and doesn’t have a product on the market.

Friar told CNBC on Thursday that any startup as young as io was “hard to value.” But she sees an eventual return on that investment.

“You’re really betting on great people and beyond,” Friar said. “It’s not just about imagining what a new platform could look like — you’ve got to be able to craft it. You’ve got to be able to build it. You’ve got to be able to understand supply chains.”

Friar, who took the CFO job at OpenAI last summer and was formerly CEO of Nextdoor, said new devices will eventually get OpenAI’s technology in the hands of more users, and drive subscription growth and attach rates. ChatGPT last reported 500 million weekly active users, but monthly actives are higher, Friar said.

“When you start thinking about it beyond just a phone, it starts to grab the imagination,” she said. “If we can get people around the world excited to use AI, we have many ways to begin to think of a business model around that. So it could be an ongoing, bigger subscription for ChatGPT.”

Friar’s comments echo others in the tech industry who have said AI hardware could change the face of computing, and threaten the iPhone. Eddy Cue, Apple’s chief of services, said earlier this month that he believes AI devices could replace the iPhone within ten years.

While OpenAI works with Apple on an iPhone and Siri integration, Friar said the company still saw a need to have its own proprietary devices.

“We want to work with many partners. When we single-thread ourselves, we don’t think that drives max innovation,” Friar said. “We continue to work closely with Apple on their device, and we’d love to see more being done with AI — but we also want to keep sparking innovation broadly in the ecosystem.”

Friar hinted at new devices without touchscreens. She declined to give details around what exactly they might look like, pointing to the former Apple team’s secretive culture and “mystique” around products.

“As you birth this new era of AI, there’s going to be new platforms and new substrate,” she said. “We think of tech today as a little bit more around touch. We as humans, we see things, we hear things, we talk. And our models are great at that.”

WATCH: CNBC’s full interview with OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar

Shares of Hinge Health popped in their debut on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday after the digital physical therapy company raised about $273 million in its IPO.

The stock opened at $39.25, rising 23% from its $32 IPO price. Hinge sold 8.52 million shares in the offering, while the total offering was for 13.7 million shares, with the balance being sold by existing shareholders.

Hinge, founded in 2014, uses software to help patients treat acute musculoskeletal injuries, chronic pain and carry out post-surgery rehabilitation from anywhere.

The San Francisco-based company filed its initial prospectus in March and updated the document earlier this month with an expected pricing range of $28 to $32.

Wall Street and the digital health sector have been watching Hinge’s debut closely, as it will shine some light on investors’ appetite for new health-tech solutions.

The broader tech IPO market has been in an extended drought since late 2021, when soaring inflation and rising interest rates pushed investors out of risky assets. Within digital health, it’s been almost completely dormant. Hinge is leading the charge, with virtual chronic care company Omada Health filing to go public earlier this month.

“Health care is tough, absolutely, but we’re very different from any of the digital health companies that have come before,” Hinge CEO Daniel Perez told CNBC’s “Money Movers” on Thursday. “Our technology is actually automating the delivery of care itself, and that’s why a lot of investors have been so interested in Hinge Health.”

Perez and Hinge’s Executive Chairman Gabriel Mecklenburg co-founded the company after experiencing personal struggles with physical rehabilitation. Perez broke an arm and a leg after he was hit by a car, and Mecklenburg tore his anterior cruciate ligament during a judo match. Both men went through about 12 months of physical therapy.

At the IPO price, Hinge was worth about $2.6 billion, though that number could be higher on a fully diluted basis. That’s down significantly from a private market valuation of $6.2 billion in October 2021, the last time the company raised outside funding.

Hinge has raised more than $1 billion from investors including Insight Partners, Tiger Global Management, Coatue Management and Atomico.

Ben Blume, a partner at Atomico, said Hinge’s ability to scale has “truly set them apart.” The firm led Hinge’s Series A funding round in 2017.

“Hinge Health has grown into a clear category leader, improving the lives of people who are living with chronic pain,” Blume said in a statement to CNBC. “Their success is a testament to the power of mission-driven innovation.”

Hinge is trading on the NYSE under the ticker symbol “HNGE.”

WATCH: IPO market will pause for summer and pickup second half of Q3, says Axios’ Dan Primack

Snowflake shares jumped 12% on Thursday, climbing to their highest level since early last year after the data analytics company reported better-than-expected quarterly results.

Revenue in the fiscal first quarter of 2026 jumped 26% to $1.04 billion from $828.7 million a year earlier, and topped the $1.01 billion average LSEG estimate. It’s the first time the company, which went public in 2020, has recorded more than $1 billion in sales in a quarter.

Adjusted earnings per share of 24 cents exceeded the 21-cent average analyst estimate, according to LSEG. Snowflake reported a net loss of $430 million, a loss of $1.29 a share, widening from a loss of $317 million, or 95 cents a share, a year earlier.

Snowflake has been adding artificial intelligence services into its cloud-based data analytics platform, which the company said in its earning release late Wednesday has helped it reach 11,000 customers.

Analysts at Cantor highlighted the significance of two new $100 million deals that closed in the quarter after slipping from the prior period, noting that “churn concerns were abated.”

The firm reiterated its buy recommendation on the stock, writing that it has “confidence Snowflake should continue to execute on a beat-and-raise strategy as the year progresses and continue to show leverage in the model.”

With Thursday’s rally, Snowflake shares are up 29% for the year, while the Nasdaq is down close to 2%.