According to The Register Intel plans to license both soft and hard x86 cores. The article did not detail which cores (nor the nature of the soft cores — e.g., one might need to use Intel-specific design tools), but since The Register quoted Bob Brennan, a VP at Intel's Foundry Services, one could infer that the offer is specific to using Intel as a manufacturer (which is somewhat reasonable, especially for the hard cores).

Licensing the most recent high performance core designs as unobfuscated soft cores seems unlikely as such would make retaining trade secrets more difficult. (Such are also likely less attractive for likely licensees. Using a soft core implies an intent for significant specialization, which reduces the value of a high performance general purpose core.)

This may be a noticeable help for attracting users to Intel's foundry services.