The Internet Archive (IA) is a recorded memory of the all the web pages on every website on the Internet since it started in 1996.

    Originally initiated in San Francisco, the original Internet Archive signed an agreement in 2002 with the BA to render the latter a backup for the original and to create two mirror sites for the Internet Archive.

    According to the agreement, the original IA donated the first generations of machines to the BA  for web archiving followed by the second generation in 2006 to accommodate 1.5 petabytes of data in 23 racks. Following that date, machines for web collections were designed and manufactured locally at the BA with a storage capacity of 2.2 petabytes hosted on 20 racks.

    Currently, the archive has a capacity to hold up to 3.7 petabytes of varying data on 1, 636 computers. The stored data includes, to date, the web collection from1996 till 2007 encompassing web pages, Egyptian and US television broadcasts, archival films and digitized books.

    The BA Internet Archive is the first center of its kind established outside US borders. It is designed not only as a backup for the mother archive in San Francisco, but also as a hub for Africa and the Middle East.

    The archive is fully operational and the collection is widely accessed by national, regional and international users through the BA mirror site, http://archive.bibalex.org, via the Wayback Machine, with over 31 million hits yearly.