By Kosaku Narioka and Yang Jie

SoftBank Group reported its first annual profit in four years as it ramped up investments in artificial intelligence.

The Japanese technology investment company said Tuesday that it booked net profit of 1.153 trillion yen, equivalent to $7.77 billion, for the year ended March, thanks partly to gains from its stake in T-Mobile US and other investments. That followed three consecutive years of losses.

Since pivoting away from a yearslong defensive strategy, SoftBank Group has been making bigger investments as its earnings improve and tech stocks advance on the enthusiasm over artificial intelligence.

The Tokyo-based company, led by billionaire Masayoshi Son, recently agreed to lead an investment of up to $40 billion in OpenAI, valuing the ChatGPT maker at $300 billion.

While SoftBank's investment commitment would fall to $20 billion if OpenAI doesn't change its structure this year, SoftBank Chief Financial Officer Yoshimitsu Goto praised the reorganization plan announced earlier this month by OpenAI.

"This is exactly as we had originally envisioned it," Goto said, adding that the $40 billion investment would proceed if the plan is implemented this year.

SoftBank said its Vision Fund 2 and co-investors invested $10.0 billion in OpenAI Global, a for-profit subsidiary of the ChatGPT maker, in mid-April, with its Vision Fund 2 contributing $8.5 billion.

In March, SoftBank inked a deal to purchase U.S.-based chip designer Ampere Computing for $6.5 billion.

SoftBank Group and OpenAI in January announced a plan to invest up to half a trillion dollars in AI infrastructure in the U.S., together with other partners such as Oracle and Abu Dhabi-based MGX. The joint venture, called Stargate, would build data centers for OpenAI. The Japanese company has said that much of the funding for each data-center project would come from lenders and debt investors.

SoftBank's earnings are susceptible to fluctuations in technology stocks. Its shares in Tokyo fell earlier this year, hit by concerns about U.S. tariffs and slower global growth. That followed a surge in 2024, driven by hopes for growing AI-related demand at the company's investees, including U.K. chip-design unit Arm Holdings.

Last week, Arm logged record quarterly revenue for the three months ended March, helped by increased usage of Arm-based chips in data centers and elsewhere.

SoftBank's annual net profit topped the Y703.7 billion estimated by analysts in a Visible Alpha poll and compared with the Y277.65 billion net loss reported the previous year.

Its Vision Funds business posted a Y115.02 billion loss, compared with profit of Y128.18 billion a year earlier.

Write to Kosaku Narioka at kosaku.narioka@wsj.com and Yang Jie at jie.yang@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 13, 2025 08:26 ET (12:26 GMT)

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