I guess it depends on what they're trying to say (which isn't clear). When you get an AWS machine with 36 vCPUs, if you pick Intel, you get 36 threads, if you pick a Graviton2, you get 36 Cores.
No, they’re comparing one physical Intel CPU/socket to one physical ARM cpu/socket of roughly equal price. That seems far more equal than an arbitrary comparison of cores when the architectures are so different.