It's been quite the year for artificial intelligence (AI) chipmaker Nvidia ( NVDA 4.57%), which has seen its stock rise more than 161% year to date. Over the last five years, Nvidia's stock is up by more than an astounding 2,560%.

The blistering stock rally that’s made Nvidia Corp. one of the world’s three most valuable companies is based on a number of assumptions. One is that artificial intelligence applications made possible by its semiconductors will become features of the modern economy.

The semiconductor space has been an important driver for the stock market, helped especially by Nvidia Corp.’s dramatic sales growth — the company’s most recent quarterly revenue was 4.5 times as high as it was two years earlier.