TOKYO, Nov 11 (Reuters) - Japan's SoftBank Group

reported on Tuesday a net profit of 2.5 trillion yen

($16.6 billion) for the July-September quarter, its third

consecutive quarter of profits.

That compared with a net profit of 1.18 trillion yen in the

same period of the previous year. Three analysts surveyed by

LSEG had estimated on average a net profit of 207 billion yen

for the current year's quarter.

SoftBank's Vision Fund unit posted an investment gain of 3.5

trillion yen, primarily deriving from the group's holding in

ChatGPT creator OpenAI which totalled 2.16 trillion yen for the

quarter.

The results coincide with a bull run in technology-related

stocks that has sent SoftBank's share price to record highs.

As the wave of investment in artificial intelligence

infrastructure such as data centers continues apace and

frontrunners in AI development such as OpenAI project rapid

growth, SoftBank has been a major beneficiary.

Nevertheless there are growing concerns among investors of

an "AI bubble", whereby the enormous sums committed to capital

investment by leading firms may not generate the high profits to

justify the investments.

($1 = 150.7800 yen)

(Reporting by Anton Bridge; Editing by Tom Hogue and

Muralikumar Anantharaman)