SoftBank Group swung to a quarterly profit, riding on gains from its bets on Nvidia and startups in a boon for founder Masayoshi Son's bets on artificial intelligence technologies. A recovery at SoftBank's signature Vision Fund and the sale of assets such as its T-Mobile U.S. holdings are helping Son double down on bets geared to help him capitalize on booming investment in AI hardware. SoftBank, which had sold 4.8 billion worth of its stake in the U.S. telecom company in June, on Thursday revealed the sale of another 3 billion of the U.S. carrier's stock. The Tokyo-based company reported net income of 421.82 billion ( 2.9 billion) in its fiscal first quarter, more than double the average of analyst estimates. The Vision Fund logged a 451.39 billion profit, helped by a recovery in tech valuations and gains on holdings such as Coupang, Auto1 Group SE, Symbotic and Swiggy.

SoftBank Group swung to a loss in the December quarter due to a drop in the value of its Vision Fund unit's public holdings, boding ill for founder Masayoshi Son who has to raise 500 billion for the Stargate artificial intelligence project. The Tokyo-based company reported a net loss of 369.2 billion ( 2.4 billion) for the fiscal third quarter compared with a profit of 950 billion a year earlier. The Vision Fund unit logged a 309.9 billion loss, hurting the bottom line after shares of public holdings such as Coupang and Didi Global gave up some of their gains from the previous quarter. Volatility in the Vision Fund's quarterly performance consistently dogs SoftBank, which has embarked on a project with OpenAI to invest 500 billion on the infrastructure needed to support and propel AI development. Japanese billionaire Son is exploring project financing to raise money.