Good news is that if you're using any of the popular python libraries for linear algebra (namely, numpy), the speed of python really doesn't matter for the math – it's all done natively inside the library.
For example, when you write matrix_prod = matrix_a @ matrix_b, that's not triggering a bunch of Python loops to multiply the two matrices, but using numpy's internal implementation (which I think uses the FORTRAN LAPACK library).
The scipy.sparse.linalg module has your back covered when it comes to solving sparsely stored matrices specifying sparse systems of equations. (which is what you do with the inverse of a matrix). If you want to use sparse matrices, that's your way to go – notice that there's matrices that are sparse in mathematical terms (i.e., most entries are 0), and matrices which are stored as sparse matrix, which means you avoid storing millions of zeros. Numpy itself doesn't have sparsely stored matrices, but scipy does.
If your matrix is densely stored, but mathematically sparse, i.e. you're using standard numpy ndarrays to store it, then you won't get any more rapid by implementing anything in Python. The theoretical complexity gains will be outweighed by the practical slowness of Python compared to highly optimized inversion.
Inverting a sparse matrix usually loses the sparsity. Also, you never invert a matrix if you can avoid it at all! For a sparse matrix, solving the linear equation system Ax = b, with A your matrix and b a known vector, for x, is so much faster done forward than computing A⁻¹! So,
I'm currently working with a least-square algorithm on Python, regarding some geodetic calculations.
since LS says you don't need the inverse matrix, simply don't calculate it, ever. The point of LS is finding a solution that's as close as it gets, even if your matrix isn't invertible. Which can very well be the case for sparse matrices!
