Not really, it suffers from the same issues that most STEM competitions do. The rewards go to the children of successful parents who gave their children important aspects of their own research or self-funded them to develop an existing idea.
The competition still has prestige, but most of the awardees didn't get where they are on their own abilities and interests.
If you're interested, do take a look at the 2015 projects - Intel STS winners are by no means coddled or fed on "fake" science. Perhaps there is an undesirable concentration of talent in certain schools or regions, leading some to question the privilege enjoyed by the winners, but there is no doubt in my mind that the awardees have performed immensely well to deserve their honors. By the way, some of the best labs/resources are also offered through meritocratic selection - Harvard/MIT's RSI and Stanford's SIMR programs both offer excellent mentorship and cutting-edge resources to summer students through an application process. These students often end up winning these competitions too, with no parent involvement.
[1]: https://student.societyforscience.org/article/teens-win-big-...
Still, since so few students interact with STS compared to, say, ISEF, it may be that Intel is trying to expand its reach by de-emphasizing the elite and looking to support the broadband "maker movement." It is also unlikely that Google, which the article mentions, will pick up the banner - they run their own Google Science Fair (which hasn't yet captured the prestige of STS). We'll see how it goes, but I and many others will miss Intel's STS, the crown jewel of high school competition.