TOKYO (Kyodo) -- SoftBank Group Corp. said Thursday its net profit jumped nearly five-fold to 3.17 trillion yen ($20.7 billion) in the nine months through December compared with a year earlier, boosted by gains from its investment in OpenAI, the developer of artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT.

The Japanese investment and technology group logged 636.15 billion yen in net profit in the same period a year earlier. Sales for the April-December period were up 7.9 percent at 5.72 trillion yen.

SoftBank Group has focused its investments on AI-centered industries from the semiconductor, robotics, data centers to energy infrastructure sectors.

The company logged a 4.22 trillion yen in investment profit for the nine months, compared to the 2.17 trillion yen profit the previous year.

SoftBank Group does not release earnings forecasts, citing uncertainties in its business environment.