> Do they license this out to fabs?

Broadly speaking yes, this is the business model. IBM has been at this for many years with technology transfers, licensing agreements, support and other arrangements. Rapidus, Samsung, GlobalFoundries, ST, SMIC, AMD, etc. have all used IBM R&D work at various times for various nodes and products.

The cutting edge of semiconductors is a writhing mass of copulating tapeworms, and IBM lives deep inside that ball. For IBM, what this means is that when you buy one of the ASML machines to make products with this process, you'll pay IBM for the knowledge and support to actually get it working, or give them a cut, or something else, TBD, as circumstances warrant.

They licensed 2 nm to Rapidus so yes.

I’m sure they will license it. It’s better for them if everyone in the industry can innovate on everything around it. All the process tech companies will make it more cost effective, for instance, which helps IBM as well.

Sit on a patent and try to scrape earnings from others, maybe? That is, license or litigate.

boost sales for their systems division, POWER CPUs, mainframes, maybe Quantum stuff