from random import randint
n = 100
generate_equal = lambda: set(range(10_000))
generate_random = lambda: {randint(0, 100_000) for _ in range(10_000)}
for l in [
[generate_equal() for _ in range(n)],
[generate_random() for _ in range(n)]
]:
%timeit set().union(*l)
%timeit reduce(or_, l)
Out:
# equal sets: 69.5 / 23.6 =~ 3
23.6 ms ± 658 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 10 loops each)
69.5 ms ± 2.57 ms per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 10 loops each)
# random sets: 438 / 78.7 =~ 5.6
78.7 ms ± 1.48 ms per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 10 loops each)
438 ms ± 20.8 ms per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 1 loop each)