President Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1958, decided to create the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). The aim of this agency was to help the American Military technology be far more advanced than the oppositions. One of the projects was a large scale computer network.
There was no singular person who is behind the creation of the internet we know of and use today. It was a joing secret project at first. Paul Baran, a researcher of ARPA & an engineer, joined RAND Protection & was given a task / job to research and ideate on how the US Air Force could have control of its sky fleet incase of a nuclear attack.
Therefore Paul Baran suggested a communication network, which includes no actual control command point. No matter which craft would have been destroyed, the communication between the rest of the crafts would continue. It was decided to be called the ‘’Distributed Network’’. Later, due to the great idea, many other computer scientists from ARPA would have joined the team project and continue on developing it, scientists such as:
Working with a scientist, Leonard Kleinrock, Lawrence Roberts was responsible for the development of computer networks at ARPA. In 1969 when Packet switching network was released, the APRANET was born.
https://www.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/objects-and-stories/short-history-internet#:~:text=scale computer network.-,Who invented the internet%3F,as we know it today.