It's assuming that "a pixel is a point sample" is a better model, even of pixel art, than "a pixel is literally a small square". Checkerboard patterns are also used quite often for simple dithering (in pixel art with smaller-palettes) which is perhaps the polar opposite of your example! (And if you really don't want blurring, most pixel-art-specific scaling algorithms will nicely match nearest neighbor on that particular pattern, while still doing their best to smooth out "jaggies" elsewhere.)

How can the scaling algorithm distinguish between "checkerboard representing high spatial frequency detail" and "checkerboard representing intermediate color"? There are games that use both. The only scaling technique I know that can do this with acceptable accuracy (in real time!) is "human brain scaling".