As to the best of my understanding, Fortran still offers some "fringe", but very important low-level optimization potential, specifically in the areas of pointers and aliases that are important to linear algorithm packages, which are apparently still hard to impossible to recreate in C.

Semi-informed, but serious question: Isn't there any other modern, high-level language that can offer these kinds of optimizations? Preferably in a safe kind of way?

I'm still struggling to understand how Fortran still stays relevant and what could possibly succeed it as a migration (or transpilation?) target with equivalent speed but superior maintainability and safety.