TOKYO, May 13 (Reuters) - Japanese technology giant

SoftBank Group ( SFTBF ) swung to a quarterly profit on Monday

from a year earlier, reporting a net profit of 328.9 billion yen

($2.11 billion) for the January-March period.

The result comes after Chief Financial Officer Yoshimitsu

Goto in February declared the tech investment company - long

known for volatile earnings and outsized bets on technology

start-ups - was on a return to a "growth trajectory".

Although founder and Chief Executive Masayoshi Son has for

years talked about the potential for artificial intelligence

(AI), as well as robotics, SoftBank has not been a big player in

the kind of generative AI models like ChatGPT that have caught

the imagination of the public, and investors.

But the promise of an AI-driven future has bolstered the

valuation of SoftBank's crown jewel asset, British chip design

firm Arm Holdings.

Monday's result marks the second straight quarter of profit

for SoftBank, although for the full year the company remained in

the red.

The Vision Fund investment unit booked an investment loss of

57.5 billion yen, after three consecutive quarters of profit

Fourth-quarter net profit at group level compared with a 32

billion yen loss in the same period a year earlier, when capital

raised using SoftBank's stake in Alibaba Group ( BABA )

cushioned some of the writedowns in the value of Vision Fund

private portfolio companies.

($1 = 155.8500 yen)