Deseret News: “Utah has partnered with Strider, a nationally recognized intelligence firm”

Businesses and state governments traditionally have not had access to the intelligence needed to identify nation-state actors who pose significant risk to their critical assets, such as technology and land. Strider, which is headquartered in South Jordan, Utah, has partnered with the State of Utah to identify foreign influence operations in the state and identify land owned by PRC entities.

This week, Utah Governor Spencer Cox announced that state officials had blocked a company with PRC ownership from buying land near the Provo Airport.

Any company owned by a sanctioned PRC entity that makes fighter jets and drones for the People’s Liberation Army has no business buying land in the United States.

This announcement, as well as Strider's efforts, was featured in the Deseret News. Excerpts below and full story can be found here.

By: Brigham Tomco

Deseret News

July 15, 2025

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox doubled down Tuesday on the state’s ban on land sales to foreign adversaries, saying the state blocked a Chinese-owned corporation from buying Utah land near an airport in the last few months.

The governor held a press conference at a small family farm in Utah County to declare that the Beehive State — which he said “used to walk on pins and needles” when dealing with China — will be having none of it.

“We don’t care anymore,” Cox said. “It’s saber rattling. This is what they do. And we’re way past that.”Report ad

Cox announced that in the past few months, Utah acted to block an attempted land purchase near Provo Airport by Cirrus Aircraft, a company that is majority-owned by the Aviation Industry Corporation of China.

The proposed investment would have meant millions of dollars and hundreds of jobs for the state of Utah, Cox said. But the national security threats posed by the nation of China are such that the state has drawn a line in the sand, he said.

“We are not for sale,” Cox said.

...

Cox was joined by Pierucci, Burton, four other state lawmakers, Utah Department of Public Safety Commissioner Beau Mason, Spanish Fork Mayor Mike Mendenhall and Strider Executive Vice President Cooper Wimmer.

For the past two years, Utah has partnered with Strider, a nationally recognized intelligence firm based in South Jordan, to identify foreign influence operations in the state and to track down Chinese land ownership, Cox confirmed.

The group specializes in using AI large language models to scour foreign databases to locate potential security threats, including spies, that adversarial nations have deployed to steal industry secrets or infiltrate U.S. government.Report ad

“We’re involved with an asymmetric war with China where they’re using influence, they’re using the press, religion, they’re using media,” Wimmer said. “And with open source intelligence we’re able to understand what they’re doing.”

One of Strider’s expertise is breaking down the proprietary ownership of land or businesses to spot if the Chinese Communist Party has even a 1% “golden share,” which is enough to give the country control over company decisions.

In recent years, multiple instances of Chinese operations have surfaced in Utah, including at least three Mandarin-speaking Utahns who were separately arrested and charged for attempting to deliver classified military materials and private intellectual property to Chinese counterparts.

Taking action against Chinese actors at the state level will not only protect Utah semiconductor, aerospace and defense companies from being spied on, it will bolster state and national security interests, Levesque said.

But there is more to be done at the government level, Levesque said. In 2023, Utah Sens. Mike Lee and Mitt Romney asked the U.S attorney general to address alleged Chinese intelligence center in Salt Lake City.

Read the full Deseret News story here.