The goal of gene therapy is to introduce foreign genes into human target cells in a certain way to correct or compensate diseases caused by defective or abnormal genes. Therefore, gene therapy has great practical significance in studying the treatment of persistent or latent HIV-1 infection. At present, the existing methods of gene therapy have some major defects such as limited target site recognition and high frequency of off-targets. The latest research showed that the clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) /CRISPR-associated nuclease 9 (Cas9) system from bacteria and archaea has been successfully reformed to a targeted genome editing tool. Thus, how to achieve the goal of treating HIV-1 infection by modifying targeted HIV-1 virus genome effectively using the CRISPR/Cas9 system has become a current research focus. Here we review the latest achievements worldwide and briefly introduce applications of the CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing technology in the treatment of HIV-1 infection, including CCR5 gene editing, removal of HIV-1 virus and activation of HIV-1 virus, in order to provide reference for the prevention and treatment of HIV-1 infection.