Disclosed is a hardware-based protection group switching method and optical communication equipment. The method includes: transmitting, by a FPGA in equipment when detecting switching triggering information indicating that a local network element possibly has switching triggering situations, the switching triggering information to each protection state machine through a hardware bus; determining, by each protection state machine according to related traffic flow information, one or more related protection groups that are possibly affected by each switching triggering situation, and generating each corresponding switching triggering condition according to each piece of switching triggering information; separately querying, by the protection state machines corresponding to the related protection groups, a pre-stored table for APS protocol operation results; and updating a cross connection table according to the operation results, and configuring the updated cross connection table to a cross connection chip or a packet switching chip through the FPGA.