All the pieces are almost in place for a magical resurgence of making, building and innovating in America.

For years, Americans were told to accept economic decline as the unavoidable price of progress.

Factories would move overseas. Industrial towns would empty out. Young people would borrow heavily for college degrees whether or not the jobs waiting for them justified the cost. Entrepreneurship would become the province of venture capitalists and elite programmers. The United States would design things while other countries built them.

That model may finally be running out of road.

Across the economy, the pieces are falling into place for a remarkable American resurgence — one built around entrepreneurship, artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing, abundant energy, skilled labor and renewed national confidence.

The transformation is still incomplete. Not every announced investment will materialize, and not every business application will become a thriving company. But the emerging pattern is difficult to dismiss.

Americans filed a record 5.7 million applications to start new businesses last year. The entrepreneurial surge began during the pandemic, but it did not disappear when lockdowns ended, stimulus payments stopped and interest rates rose. Business creation has remained unusually strong.

Artificial intelligence may now be adding fuel.

AI is lowering the cost of starting a company by giving ordinary people access to capabilities that once required employees, contractors or expensive consultants. A founder can use AI to research a market, develop a name, write advertising copy, create a website, answer customer questions, analyze financial information and even produce software.

The next great American company may still begin in a Silicon Valley garage. But it could also begin in a kitchen in Kansas, a spare bedroom in Pennsylvania or a small storefront in Wisconsin.

That democratization of entrepreneurship is one half of the emerging boom.

The other half is physical production.

At the recent Defense and Innovation Summit in Pennsylvania, government officials, investors, manufacturers, labor leaders and technology companies gathered around a goal the country neglected for too long: rebuilding America’s capacity to make essential things.

The summit showcased nearly $10 billion in investments, contracts, financing, acquisitions and potential business opportunities associated with Pennsylvania companies. The projects touched shipbuilding, submarines, robotics, cybersecurity, batteries, critical minerals, munitions and artificial intelligence.

Jamie Dimon announced that JPMorgan Chase would help finance a new submarine manufacturing facility at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, along with worker training and small-business support. Hanwha is investing billions in Philadelphia shipbuilding. Lockheed Martin is expanding its Pennsylvania operations. Smaller companies are developing robots, energy-storage systems and software for modern warfare.

These are not separate trends. They are parts of the same economic reawakening.

AI can help a small entrepreneur create a business. It can also help a shipyard inspect vessels, help a factory predict equipment failures and help the federal government understand ancient computer systems that no single employee fully comprehends.

Technology is not eliminating the importance of making things. It is changing how efficiently and intelligently things can be made.

President Donald Trump deserves credit for recognizing that manufacturing, energy and national security are inseparable. A country that cannot produce its own ships, weapons, computer chips, electrical equipment and critical infrastructure is not fully sovereign, no matter how wealthy it appears on paper.

Trump’s emphasis on domestic production, energy abundance and economic nationalism has changed the political conversation. Manufacturing is no longer treated as a nostalgic concern for towns that failed to adapt. It is once again being understood as a foundation of national power.

Pennsylvania Sen. Dave McCormick has helped translate that national vision into a regional strategy. By bringing together companies, investors, unions, universities and military leaders, he demonstrated how elected officials can do more than deliver speeches. They can help connect capital with workers, technological ideas with customers and national needs with local capabilities.

The coalition forming around reindustrialization is broader than one party.

Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro and Democratic Sen. John Fetterman participated in the Pennsylvania summit. Building-trades union leader Sean McGarvey praised the opportunities being created for skilled workers. Dimon spoke about welders entering paid apprenticeships, receiving healthcare and moving into careers capable of supporting homes and families.

That is the American dream in tangible form.

It is also a needed correction to decades of credential inflation. America requires scientists, engineers and university researchers. But it also needs welders, machinists, electricians, pipefitters, construction workers and technicians. A strong economy should offer multiple paths into the middle class, not force every young person through the same expensive academic doorway.

The ingredients of a boom are therefore nearly assembled.

America has extraordinary capital markets. It has leading universities, abundant energy resources, the world’s most advanced technology companies and millions of people eager to build independent lives. It has rising demand for defense production, electrical infrastructure, data centers, housing, transportation and domestic supply chains.

Most important, the country appears to be recovering its appetite for ambition.

There are reasons for restraint. A business application is not the same as a successful business. A promised investment is not the same as a completed factory. Government contracts can be delayed, costs can rise and bureaucracies can smother good ideas. Artificial intelligence can increase productivity without necessarily producing traditional employment on the scale previous industrial revolutions did.

The boom will not happen automatically.

America must produce enough electricity to power it. Permitting rules must allow factories, mines, data centers, transmission lines and housing to be built. Schools and apprenticeship programs must train workers for jobs that actually exist. Government procurement must become faster and more accountable. Immigration policy should attract exceptional talent without using foreign labor as a substitute for investing in American workers.

But those are problems of execution, not evidence that the opportunity is imaginary.

For the first time in decades, several powerful forces are moving in the same direction. Entrepreneurs are starting businesses. AI is reducing barriers to innovation. Capital is returning to industrial projects. Workers are rediscovering skilled trades. Washington is treating domestic production as a security priority. Political leaders in both parties are recognizing that America must once again build what it needs.

The old economic model asked Americans to manage decline gracefully.

The emerging model asks them to invent, finance, manufacture and construct the future.

Boom times are never guaranteed. They are created when technology, capital, labor, policy and confidence converge.

That convergence may be happening now.

(Contributing writer, Brooke Bell)