The Internet Archive (IA) holds a recorded memory of all webpages on every website since the launch of the Internet in 1996.
Founded in San Francisco by Brewster Kahle, the original Internet Archive signed an agreement with the BA in 2002 to render the latter a backup of the original and create two mirror sites for the web archive collection. In accordance with the agreement, the original IA donated the first generation of machines for web archiving to the BA in 2002, including a copy of the IA web archive collection spanning from 1996 to 2001 at the time. In 2006, the BA replaced the initial 100 TB web archiving infrastructure with a newer design acquired from the original IA with a 1.5 petabytes (1,500,000 GB) capacity to store data in 23 racks, which then mirrored a decade of web archiving starting in 1996. In 2008, the BA added yet another 1.4 petabytes of capacity provided by machines that were designed and assembled locally. Since then, the capacity has been expanded twice using locally assembled hardware. The BA web archiving infrastructure currently has the capacity to store 4.9 petabytes of varying data, and this storage has since been used not only for web archiving but also for archiving other digital content, mainly consisting of a substantial collection of books digitized by the BA.
The web archive collection at the BA can be accessible by national, regional, and international users through the BA Wayback Machine at web.archive.bibalex.org.
The BA Internet Archive is the first center of its kind established outside US borders. It is not only a backup of the mother archive in San Francisco, but also a cultural and informational hub for Africa and the Middle East.