To establish how HIV infection alters global cellular metabolism, we investigated the metabolic status of ex vivo CD8+ T cells from HIV-infected individuals from three distinct clinical stages, cART-naïve and treated: (1) early (acquired within 6 mo); (2) chronic progressive (infected > 1 yr, CD4+ T-cell count of <500/μl); and (3) VCs (infected > 1 yr, plasma viral load <5,000 copies/ml, CD4+ T-cell count of >500/μl, not on cART). Here, CD4 is linked to HIV infectious disease.