diff --git a/news/12803.bugfix.rst b/news/12803.bugfix.rst
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..4193d33e05c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/news/12803.bugfix.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,4 @@
+Improve pip install performance. Files are now extracted in 1MB blocks,
+or in one block matching the file size for smaller files.
+A decompressor is no longer instantiated when extracting 0 bytes files,
+it is not necessary because there is no data to decompress.
diff --git a/src/pip/_internal/operations/install/wheel.py b/src/pip/_internal/operations/install/wheel.py
index a02a193d226..c7d9c09cc65 100644
--- a/src/pip/_internal/operations/install/wheel.py
+++ b/src/pip/_internal/operations/install/wheel.py
@@ -377,9 +377,13 @@ def save(self) -> None:
 
         zipinfo = self._getinfo()
 
-        with self._zip_file.open(zipinfo) as f:
-            with open(self.dest_path, "wb") as dest:
-                shutil.copyfileobj(f, dest)
+        # optimization: the file is created by open(),
+        # skip the decompression when there is 0 bytes to decompress.
+        with open(self.dest_path, "wb") as dest:
+            if zipinfo.file_size > 0:
+                with self._zip_file.open(zipinfo) as f:
+                    blocksize = min(zipinfo.file_size, 1024 * 1024)
+                    shutil.copyfileobj(f, dest, blocksize)
 
         if zip_item_is_executable(zipinfo):
             set_extracted_file_to_default_mode_plus_executable(self.dest_path)