What cities will look like in five years

Over last 100 years, the world's population has grown significantly and water usage has grown at twice that rate, said Campbell. "We are rapidly consuming and running out of water, and part of that is through leaky infrastructure," he said.

IBM's fifth prediction calls for cities that will be able to predict emergencies in order to reduce and prevent them. Campbell envisions the time frame for responding to emergency activities to be reduced to the point "where we can respond before there is a call to 911."

Technologies that allow cities to sense gunshots in downtown streets through microphones on telephone poles that triangulate where that that gunshot was fired and relay that information to the police is one example, Campbell explained.

Rapid response systems can become even more effective in preventing crime by using analytics to understand patterns and trends that would allow police departments, for example, to clean up areas of a city before the crimes occur, he added.

The Edmonton Police department is already working to collect as many as 10 million pieces of disparate data that come together on any particular crime and analyze this to spot trends, solve crimes and understand where they are likely to occur in the future, said Campbell.