The Nasdaq is home to many of the best growth stocks in the world. But to join the Nasdaq 100 index is particularly exclusive, since as the name implies, it contains the top 100 (nonfinancial) stocks on the exchange.

Palantir Technologies has been one of the hottest stocks on the market over the past couple of years, clocking eye-popping gains of more than 1,100% as of this writing thanks to its accelerating growth that's being driven by the booming demand for artificial intelligence (AI) enterprise software.