Thus just recently Intel decided to port the existing ARM-specific Android kernel to their x86 architecture. The next logical step was to add hardware-assisted virtualization (KVM) - which they did.
Fortunately, both Intels Kernel and the Android ICS sources are open source. It took me some time to get Android Ice Cream Sandwich up and running from ASOP sources, but finally it worked out.
The following article describes how to compile ICS for the x86 platform and how to plug in Intels Kernel. The result is a hardware-accelerated ICS system-image for the emulator-x86 with blazing fast performance:
http://blog.testobject.org/2012/04/giving-your-android-emulator-boost.html
If you dont want to get your hands dirty, the article refers to a precompiled system-image which can be downloaded and installed in a few simple steps.
