I see two options from this perspective. It is always possible to inline assembler in C, and present vector operators as functions in a library. Otherwise, R

I see two options from this perspective. It is always possible to inline assembler in C, and present vector operators as functions in a library. Otherwise, R does perceive vectors, so another language that performs well might be a better choice. Julia comes to mind, but I have little familiarity with it. With Java, linking the JRE via JNI would be an (ugly) option.