Replying to Math programming webserver

so, maybe someone on here can drop me a few keywords to search further:

i have a small scientific survey project up and running (the guys who participated in my super-bowl predictions have seen it a few months back).

so far, i never had a really big dataset. with less data, PHP can perform the maximization process for a specific scientific element pretty easily.

but now i have the first "real" dataset with over 300 respondents and PHP is not even close to the 30/60 seconds timeout.

what i need is a programming language which can be implemented by "a" or "most" webserver(s), and which can handle a table (several thousands of rows, 20-50 per respondent; 10-30 columns), or array or however the fuck you wanna call it and maximize a function that includes calculations in every single row and send the "optimal" parameters back to PHP.



SPARKNOTES: need webserver "math" programming language which can handle 5000x30 arrays, maximize a function depending on said arrays, and then send it back to PHP.


just give me a keyword and i will figure it out from there.